Under the new law, doctors will also not be penalized for administering - at the request of patients suffering from extreme pain - higher than normal doses of medication, even if the drugs have a secondary and subsequent effect of hastening death. Moreover, a gravely or terminally ill patient will be allowed to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment.

French Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told lawmakers the proposed legislation would not "legalize the right to give death."

"A humane and dignified death is possible without having to fall back on euthanasia," he said.

"This legislation is one that allows dying but does not allow killing," explained lawmaker Jean Leonetti, who visited Belgium and the Netherlands to study their euthanasia laws. "That is how it is different from euthanasia."

Lawmakers in the Netherlands, CNS News reported, are currently considering guidelines for mercy killing involving patients who are considered to be in severe pain but are incapable of deciding for themselves - a list that would include babies, children, severely mentally ill people and those in an irreversible coma.

Editor's note: