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Posted on 03/17/2008 3:01:50 PM PDT by wagglebee
DIJON, France, March 17, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A mother of three who lives in the Bourgogne region of Eastern France has had her plea to be euthanized by her doctor rejected by a court in Dijon. The court ruled that French law does not permit a doctor to prescribe lethal drugs to patients.
The case of the 53-year-old woman, Chantal Sebire, has garnered widespread sympathy in France, especially since she appeared on national television and made an appeal to French President Nicholas Sarkozy to intervene on her behalf and accede to her request to be killed. The French President responded by saying that he would convene a panel of specialists to explore possibilities for the treatment of Sebire's condition, an offer that she refused.
Sebire suffers from an extremely rare form of cancer, called esthesioneuroblastoma, which has resulted in severe disfigurement of her face, pain, and the loss of the senses of smell and sight.
"I no longer accept this enduring pain, and this protruding eye that nothing can be done about," Sebire told RTL radio in an interview. "I want to go out celebrating, surrounded by my children, friends, and doctors before I'm put to sleep definitively at dawn."
The magistrate who ruled against Sebire's appeal, however, said that mere sympathy cannot be used to justify allowing doctors to prescribe lethal drugs, which contravenes French law.
"Even if the physical degeneration of Madame Sebire merits compassion, this request can only be rejected under French law," he said.
Alex Schadenberg, the Chairman of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - International, which is working to prevent the legalization of euthanasia worldwide, told LifeSiteNews.com that his organization is "concerned that Chantal Sébire will be encouraged to dehydrate herself to death, or receive assistance to kill herself, rather than being offered humane psychological and social support to enable her to live with her condition.
"The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition recognizes that Chantal is in a very vulnerable position. She needs the support of a caring community and not death."
Schadenberg also criticized Dr. Bernard Senet, a general practitioner in Velleron and a member of the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity (ADMD), who has said that he will help Sebire end her life by assisted suicide or, as he says, the voluntary "interruption of life". Schadenberg says that Senet's position towards Sebire, whose condition is not terminal, but rather chronic, demonstrates that the right to die movement is not, as is so often said, concerned only with ending the suffering of the terminally ill.
"It is interesting that the Right to Die position promotes death for incurably ill people until they have a case of a chronic condition," he said. "The issue of euthanasia is not about physical suffering or terminal illness but about creating conditions for death on demand."
In the meantime, however, Sebire has said that she will not appeal the court's decision, instead indicating that she will use other means to obtain the lethal drugs necessary to kill herself.
"I now know how to get my hands on what I need and if I don't get it in France, I will get it elsewhere,'' she said.
Very true, there is no telling what the culture of death will offer as an incentive for her to find another way to kill herself.
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If she wants to be murdered why not just venture alone into a muslim neighborhood at night?
Why forever damage a physician by enlisting their assistance in your demise. Why must she draw others into her personal perdition of self loathing.
How profound is her loss of simple gratitude in simple existence.
“In the meantime, however, Sebire has said that she will not appeal the court’s decision, instead indicating that she will use other means to obtain the lethal drugs necessary to kill herself.”
IOW, she threatned to kill herself if she lost.
This poor woman is used as a tool by groups of liberal pro-euthanasy activists.She refused sedative and anti-algic drugs which should have driven her rather quickly to coma and death...
She has not be cured correctly.Her case has been medically mishandled
“Why must she draw others into her personal perdition of self loathing.”
Because she wants to put the responsibility of actually doing the act on someone else.
That’s the point, the culture of death is using this poor woman to advance their agenda. They are not interested in treatment for her condition or even relieving her pain, they just want to kill her and create a precedent.
Ping....
She can just cover up that funky eye. She needs psychiatric care so she can accept and love herself the way she is.
There are pain meds.... if she needs some, she should have a port so she doesn’t get too much at once. Sounds like she’s looking for Dr. Kevorkian’s french cousin Enre’.
Tell someone they’re worthless and if they’ve lost their sense of self, they’ll fall for it. Her children are learning some tough lessons.
What the culture of death so conveniently overlooks is the fact that nearly all of us have or will have to watch someone we love die from a painful condition and many of us will one day have to go through it ourselves. But this is the way it always has been and it is, therefore, what God intended. There are drugs to deal with the pain, we need not selfishly extinguish life because we think we know better than God.
I've often wondered this. People overdose every day...
I don't believe in suicide - I wouldn't want to go to the other side and have to answer why...I pray I never come to the place where I would wish to die. One never knows what one will do under terrible circumstances. It's easy to judge. Easy to say "I would never..."
But unless we've been there, we can only hope we "would never" =
But I would not want to put the burden someone else to share in the decision/
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Why should a physician even be necessary to obtain the meds?
The state has imposed itself, blocking her access except through a physician. If the state stepped aside, then there wouldn’t be any doctor involved.
Good question
Why not buy your own on the street
Alcohol is cheap
Sodium Cyanide can be bought in industrial quantities
Hydrochloric Acid is widely available
Carbon Monoxide is ridiculously easy to synthesize
Why involve pharmaceuticals at all?
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