euthanasia - France
Case of Chantal Sebire pushes euthanasia debate
Thursday 13 March 2008
The case of Chantal Sebire, a 52-year-old mother who suffers from an untreatable facial tumour and wishes to die, has brought euthanasia to the forefront of legal debates. Warning these images are very graphic.
Thursday 13 March 2008
By France 24.com with news wire servicesShould euthanasia be legalised? Should each person seeking this option be forced to appear before a judge? React and post your questions by clicking on the 'react' button below. You questions may be used during our debate at 7:10 pm (GMT+1).
The 2005 law that governs how the French may die tends to let things take their course, without going so far as to allow doctors to actively practice euthanasia. But this is exactly what Chantal Sebire wants to do. The 52-year-old mother has a facial tumor that cannot be operated on.
“We have asked the president of the Dijon courts to allow a doctor to procure and administer the necessary medicine to bring about a dignified and serene death,” declared the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity (ADMD), which lobbies for the legal right for doctors to ‘actively aid’ patients in their deaths.
The 2005 law stipulates that doctors can “decide to limit or stop a treatment if it is useless, disproportionate, or has no other use than to artificially prolong life.”
These doctors must take into account the patient’s opinion, or that of his family or designated decision maker, or – in some cases – written instructions if they have been prepared ahead of time.
“In any circumstances, the doctor must attempt to alleviate the suffering of the patient with the appropriate means, and he must also assist morally,” and “abstain from any unreasonable action,” according to the law.
Any person who has reached the age of majority can have how they wish to be treated at the end of their life recorded legally in case they are unable to express themselves. These directions can be cancelled at any time.
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14/03/2008 05:40:32 Alert a moderator
euthanasia as a human right
By hxjp -
anyone has the right to choose when to die, as long as it doesn't affect the liberties of another. as an hiv+ person, i know that when i can no longer garden, (and in that- having no way to afford myself,) it will forbode my walking on. being post cancer, one has a real sense of what the body can do, what you want to do or can tolerate, and it sometimes isn't much. how can one foist that on loved ones?
i support any patient's right to die, as long as they've communicated it to their family and everyone is copacetic. it isn't a state right, it's a human right, and often the last best moral decision, as an inoperable or untreatable condition would bring.
working once on a cancer unit, i can say i've seen bad deaths, and fearful ones. i don't want to see that again.
as i've grown older, i have learned that governments would rather save you from abortion only to use you at 18 to fight the multinational war on oil, and then abuse you of countless earned income years until you die.
thinking about sends me in a tailspin, and that is where working in a garden grounds you to what really is important: to be able to carry on a conversation with all living things, teach what you know to as many as ask, to feed the hungry, whatever gift you bring to the table. i garden in the flagmarl of my ancestors, as do you- we are in a continuum, death is a part of us in the garden of life.