Word: euthanasia
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Chantal Sébire is dead, but the debate she ignited over French laws prohibiting victims of terminal diseases from receiving euthanasia is certain to live on. Just 48 hours after a Dijon court rejected Sébire's request that doctors help her end her agony-stricken life without risking legal punishment, the 52 year-old was found dead in her home Wednesday night. Initial tests Thursday were unable to determine whether Sébire's death was induced or the result of the rare disease that left her horribly disfigured and in near-constant pain. But news of her passing provoked...
...stop administering life-sustaining treatment to terminal patients. But last week, the Elysée responded to Sébire's written request for help to Sarkozy by indicating he could not sidestep legislation. Ahead of Monday's court rejection of her petition that the law be interpreted to permit active euthanasia, members of France's conservative government similarly rebuffed Sébire's plea with reactions ranging from evident compassion and empathy to cold legal rationalization - and in at least one case, prickly indignation. Housing Minister Christine Boutin declared that she was "scandalized that people can envision granting this woman death because...
...longer wanted to live in his paralyzed, virtually shut-in condition. Marie Humbert - the mother of that man - has continued denouncing the law for only allowing the passive act of interrupting life-sustaining treatment. Some 300,000 people have signed Humbert's petition to depenalize active euthanasia...
...passed following a controversial mercy killing by a mother and doctor of a tetrapalegic, blind, and virtually shut-in patient who made his desire to die clear. In crafting that legislation, French lawmakers sought to draw a fine line between allowing terminal patients to die and active euthanasia, or mercy-killing, which is permissible under certain conditions in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland...
...Some government officials have suggested that while the judge will likely reject her case on Monday, it may be possible for her to be hospitalized and put into an artificial coma without being fed until she dies. That passive form of euthanasia, Sebire objected, was "neither dignified, humane, or respectful of me or my children." Should she lose, Sebire's lawyer says she'll either appeal, if she feels the strength to fight on, or give up her efforts to die in France on her own terms, and check into a Swiss facility specializing in assisted suicide. "It's hard...