article_snippet: France is one step closer to legalising euthanasia after approving a bill that allows doctors to sedate terminally ill patients until doctors die.
article_snippet: a bill that allows doctors to sedate terminally ill patients until they die stops short of recommending lethal injections and avoids the terms euthanasia or assisted suicide, but would give people 'the right to deep, continuous sedation until death'.
article_snippet: This must be at the patient's request, but only when their condition is life-threatening in the short-term.
article_snippet: Backed by the Socialist government, a bill that allows doctors to sedate terminally ill patients until they die would also force doctors in France to follow end-of-life instructions expressed by the patients themselves, or written in advance if the patients themselves are no longer able to state the patients themselves wishes.
article_snippet: So-called terminal or 'palliative sedation' can involve medicating patients until patients die naturally of patients illnesses, or until patients starve.
article_snippet: The method does not actively kill patients, but some doctors say The method can mean patients are sedated for weeks before patients die, and that it may be more humane to euthanise.
highlights_snippet: France approves a bill allowing doctors to sedate patients until doctors die .
  
highlights_snippet: Proposal would give people 'right to deep, continuous sedation until death'
  At patient's request, only when condition is life-threatening in short-term .
  