(New Law in) France allows terminally ill to choose death (NYT/IHT)

[Up2Late]

France allows terminally ill to choose death

By Craig S. Smith The New York Times

Thursday, April 14, 2005

PARIS In a quiet coda to the dramatic mercy killing of a severely disabled man in 2003, French legislators on Wednesday approved a law permitting terminally ill patients to reject treatment in favor of death, but stopped short of legalizing euthanasia.

The law allows families to end life support for patients in a coma, as happened in the Terri Schiavo case in the United States, and permits doctors to prescribe pain medication for terminally ill patients even if those drugs may hasten death. However, it does not allow doctors to actively end a patient's life. "We had to have a law that respects not only the wishes of the patients but protects the doctor who follows the patient to the end of life," said Michel Ducloux, president of France's National Council of Doctors. He added that the medical community already followed a code of ethics that addressed the same issues. "This was an enormous problem, especially for anesthesiologists whose efforts could otherwise be considered premeditated murder," he said.

The law, passed after an overnight session of the Senate, formalizes what has long been a matter of practice in French hospitals but has rarely risen to the level of public debate that such cases have caused in the United States.

One exception was the death of Vincent Humbert, a mute and blind quadriplegic who was killed at his request with injections of barbiturates and potassium chloride in September 2003. His doctor is currently under investigation for murder. Humbert's death, which drew international attention, came on the day that bookstores began selling his book, "I Ask the Right to Die," an emotional plea for euthanasia to be legalized in France, which he wrote by counting out letters of the alphabet with his thumb and head. Euthanasia is legal under certain circumstances in the Netherlands and Belgium and is fully legal in Switzerland, where there are associations that help terminally ill patients kill themselves.

(much more at link above)

[rodeodance]

1. and is already a practice in US hospitals (unless we have the TS case)

and a Congress that exploits the situation

[Erika]

2. Totally true

Most Americans value a quality of life not just the heartbeat. Bush/DeLay and the rest of the theocrats can wish their will be done, but I don't think the public will settle for it.

[PDX Bara]

3. Theocrats

Make them pay, out of their own pockets, for imposing their will upon others by forcing them to subsist in ways abhorrent to the subject person. I have stated many times over that I will come back to haunt anyone who tortures me with extraordinary "care" at the end of my life - let me go with dignity when it's time.