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European court to decide whether quadriplegic man should be allowed die

The case that has torn his family apart and sparked a fierce euthanasia debate in France.

EUROPE’S HUMAN RIGHTS court has begun hearing arguments on whether a man in a vegetative state should be taken off life support, in a case that has torn his family apart and ignited a fierce euthanasia debate in France.

Vincent Lambert, 38, who was left severely brain damaged and quadriplegic as a result of a 2008 road accident, has for months been at the centre of a judicial tug-of-war over his right to die.

And after fighting it out in French courts, his family is hoping that Europe’s rights laws will shed light on whether he should be kept alive, or allowed to die.

The legal drama began in January 2014 when Lambert’s doctors, backed by his wife and six of his eight siblings, decided to cut off the intravenous food and water keeping him alive in line with a 2005 passive euthanasia law in France which allows treatment maintaining life to be withheld.

His 33-year-old wife, Rachel, who like him is a psychiatric nurse, said he would never have wanted to be kept alive artificially, while doctors said that their patient was “suffering.”

However, his deeply religious Catholic parents, half-brother and sister won an urgent court application to stop the plan.

In an appeal, the French supreme administrative court, known as the State Council, ordered three doctors to draw up a report on Lambert’s condition and in June ruled that the decision to withdraw care from a man with no hope of recovery was lawful.

Lambert’s parents then took the case to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which ordered France to keep Lambert alive while they decided whether the State Council’s decision was in line with the European Convention on Human Rights.

“Not letting Vincent Lambert go would be a lack of respect,” a former doctor at the hospital where he is being kept, Eric Kariger, said on Tuesday.

Lambert’s wife Rachel told AFP in an earlier interview that her husband would “never have wanted to be kept in this state.”

Keeping him alive artificially, it is unbearable compared to the man he was.

AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

‘Stop this madness’ 

But to his parents, stopping treatment would be tantamount to euthanasia.

“I hope the ECHR will be able to stop this madness. Vincent is not at the end of his life, he is handicapped,” his mother Viviane Lambert told AFP when she arrived in Strasbourg on Tuesday night.

“They are trying to make us say we don’t want him to go, but it is not at all the case, we don’t want him to be snuffed out,” said the staunch Catholic who insists her faith has nothing to do with her efforts to keep her son alive.

The lawyer for Lambert’s parents, Jean Paillot, argues that the patient’s condition would “improve if he was receiving better care.”

He will argue in Strasbourg that stopping intravenous nourishment would be an “inhumane and degrading” violation of Lambert’s right to life.

The ECHR is expected to take up to two months to deliver its judgement in the case, one of several stirring passions among supporters and opponents of euthanasia.

Euthanasia is illegal in France but Francois Hollande pledged in his 2012 presidential campaign to look into the issue.

In December lawmakers unveiled proposals for a bill that would allow doctors to place terminally-ill patients into a deep sleep until they died.

Critics slammed the move as masking euthanasia as sedation, while the pro-euthanasia camp was disappointed the proposal steered clear of assisted suicide, a practice that allows a doctor to provide patients with all the necessary lethal substances to end their life but lets them carry out the final act.

Lawmakers are due to debate the issue this month.

© AFP, 2015

Read: The interesting bits you need to read from the David Drumm ruling

Read: These are the countries hosting the world’s refugees

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    Dec 28th 2024, 1:39 PM

    Nobody cared when Salah was missing for over two months last season along with half their team from Jan to end March. Poor Arsenal get an injury and it’s the end of the world. Deal with it. Scraping by a pathetic Ipswich isn’t very convincing

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    Dec 28th 2024, 2:59 PM

    @Dan The Man: You sound worried.

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    Dec 28th 2024, 3:21 PM

    @Basildon Joe: Liverpool are walking away with the league title.

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    Dec 28th 2024, 4:37 PM

    @Basildon Joe: You have about 19 accounts trying to stir up things in every comment section on this place. The only person taking anything is you with oxygen.

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    Dec 29th 2024, 6:09 PM

    @Basildon Joe: your also s€um.

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    Dec 28th 2024, 12:37 PM

    Makes no difference it like they were going to win the league anyway

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    Dec 28th 2024, 2:49 PM

    You’ll never walk alone , Manchester is Blue , Glory Glory Man Utd , Coe Palmer is the new Messiah , The Premier is the best in the world, that’s all we hear from the Irish Patriot’s on here everyday ….. Very intelligent and interesting people you are !! See you next Tuesday lads…

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    Dec 28th 2024, 2:51 PM

    @Quinny: I’d imagine you don’t get invited to many parties

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    Dec 28th 2024, 3:06 PM

    @Mick O’K: I dunno who Coe Palmer is or what this has to do with Irish patriotism?

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    Dec 28th 2024, 3:33 PM

    @Joe Beirne: that’s ok Joe, you not knowing stuff doesn’t usually stop you from posting

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    Dec 28th 2024, 3:34 PM

    @Mick O’K: I’ve never heard that one before, you’re describing yourself and you know it lol

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    Dec 28th 2024, 4:54 PM

    @Quinny: “lol” at the end of a comment says so very much about you pal

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    Dec 28th 2024, 6:31 PM

    @Mick O’K: Enjoy your many many parties ;)

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    Dec 29th 2024, 7:59 AM

    @james rowan: I’ve one account, don’t give up your day job , because a detective, you’re definitely not.

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    Dec 29th 2024, 9:10 AM

    There’s enough in the squad to still finish in the top two & have a real chance of champions league. They give nothing away so maybe a run of 6 wins on the spin and we’ll see where that puts them . I have a feeling that the game at Anfield will be a decider.

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