Thursday, March 20, 2008

France rejects right-to-die plea

A French woman with a severely disfiguring and incurable facial tumour has been refused the right to die.

Chantal Sebire, a 52-year-old former schoolteacher and mother of three, had asked a court in Dijon, eastern France, to allow doctors to help her die.

But while the French have liberalised legislation governing euthanasia, the court ruled the law still did not allow doctors to actively end a life.

(Via Next Nature.)

3 comments:

Paul Kimball said...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23407034-1702,00.html

Mac said...

Thanks for the update, Paul.

I sincerely hope this brave woman inspires some sanity among the anti-euthanasia crowd.

Paul Kimball said...

Mac:

Euthenasia is a tricky subject. On the one hand, I think everyone has the ultimate right to decide when they want to go, and the state has no business interfering with them. On the other hand, I don't think that the state should be assisting them, which is what it would be doing if it sanctioned euthenasia (all doctors being governed, in some way, shape or form, by the state). Ergo, I don't support any law that makes assisting a person commit suicide legal, and I do think it should remain a crime... just not one that should be prosecuted. Sometimes that's the kind of fine line that the law needs to walk.

Paul