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| Doctors started halting Lambert's life support at the Sebastopol Hospital in the northern French city of Reims (AFP Photo/FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI) |
Reims (France) (AFP) - Doctors in France on Monday began removing life support for a quadriplegic man who has been in a vegetative state for the last decade, in a hugely controversial case that has drawn in Pope Francis.
The dispute
over the fate of Vincent Lambert, 42, who sustained severe brain damage in a
2008 traffic accident, has split his own family and become a subject of
political tensions in France.
Lambert's
parents, devout Catholics, have repeatedly launched court action to keep him
alive, putting them at odds with Lambert's wife and six siblings who believe
the most humane course is to let him die.
A
last-minute request Monday to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,
eastern France, to halt the decision pending a review by the UN Committee on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was rejected.
The court
had already refused a similar request in April and said Monday there was
"no new evidence" that would justify a new hearing.
Following a
final judicial ruling to end the nutrition and hydration Lambert receives,
doctors started halting his life support at the Sebastopol Hospital in the
northern French city of Reims.
Medical
sources told AFP that Lambert could die within days or a week.
The case
has re-ignited a contentious debate over France's right-to-die laws, which
allow so-called "passive" euthanasia for severely ill or injured
patients with no chance of recovery.
Critics say
the decision on Lambert is akin to killing a handicapped person, and Pope
Francis weighed in Monday in favour of keeping him alive.
"Let
us always safeguard life, God's gift, from its beginning until its natural end.
Let us not give in to a throwaway culture," the pontiff said.
French
President Emmanuel Macron rejected calls by Lambert's parents and others to
intervene, saying "the decision to stop treatment was taken after a
constant dialogue between his doctors and his wife, who is his legal
representative."
Lambert's
wife Rachel said Monday that "to see him go, is to see him as a freed
man."
"Everyone
can have their own opinion and convictions... but above all can we now have our
privacy," she told RTL radio.
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Doctors
started halting Lambert's life support at the Sebastopol Hospital in the
northern French city of Reims (AFP Photo/FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI)
|
'As
peaceful as possible'
Vincent
Sanchez, the doctor treating Lambert who has been the target of the parents'
anger, said in a message to the family that the "halting of
treatments" and "profound and continued sedation" had been
initiated.
In the
message seen by AFP, he urged everyone to "rally around him (Vincent
Lambert) so these moments are as peaceful, intimate and personal as
possible."
The family
has been torn apart by the case.
"They
are monsters! Monsters!" said his mother Viviane, 73, as she came to the
hospital on Monday. The day before she had organised a demonstration outside
with her husband Pierre, 90.
An
emotional video of Viviane comforting her son in his room, telling him not to
cry as he appears to blink away tears, was later posted on the website of the
conservative Valeurs Actuelles magazine.
The parents
returned later Monday accompanied by two Benedictine monks who were family
friends.
One of
Lambert's cousins, Helen Liaud, told journalists she would start a hunger
strike, calling the decision "unacceptable in a country like France."
"It
means that we can... kill all handicapped people who can't feed
themselves," she said.
A march was
planned later Monday in Paris towards the Elysee palace "to ask for a
presidential pardon," lawyers said, before adding: "There is still
time to stop this madness."
Legal
wrangling
In 2014
Lambert's doctors, backed by his wife and siblings, decided to stop his
nutrition and hydration in line with the law.
But the
parents, and his half-brother and a sister obtained a court order to block the
move on grounds his condition might improve with better treatment, setting off
a complex and wrenching legal saga that lasted half a decade.
Early this
year, a French court sided with Sanchez's decision to stop the care keeping
Lambert alive.
The ruling
was upheld last month by France's State Council which decides on the validity
of laws and legal decisions.
The UN
committee on disabled rights this month asked France to suspend the decision
while it conducts its own investigation, which could take years. The French government
has made clear there is no legal obligation to abide by this.
Related Articles:
"... The Ethics of Life
You, as a Human Being, are designed to appreciate and love life. But you put it in a box. You think you live once. You say, life is precious; make it count; keep it going at all costs; make it work. And the underlying thought is that because you only go around one time, all the purpose is wrapped up in one lifetime. Well, I'm going to give you something to think about, something that happened just recently that tens of millions of people all over earth who have the western news media know of.
It was all about one woman's life, and you know who I'm talking about. I'm talking about Terri [Terri Schiavo]. And I'm going to talk about Terri because, you know, she's here [speaking of the real Terri]! And I'm going to give you a perspective about Terri that perhaps you hadn't thought about before, and as I do it, she's going to watch.
It's very metaphysical, you know? This perspective is one from my side of the veil. Terri leaned into the wind of birth many years ago, just as you did. I was there, too. There were potentials laying in front of her - a track that she could take if she wished. There was no predestination, only predispositions of energy that laid before her: the parents she would have (which she had selected), the man she might meet or marry, the accident waiting to happen. All of these things were in her "potential track," and she could have chosen not to go there.
But like so many of you, she looked at it and examined it. These were the times we spoke to her and said, "Dear one, you're going into another Human lifetime that has a potential that's awesome - grander than most Humans on the planet will ever experience. You'll get to present something to tens of millions of people. You'll make them think about life. You'll change the legal system of your country. You'll awaken peoples' awareness to situations that need to be addressed with respect to morality, integrity, and even intuition. Will you do it?"
And I remember what she said. The grand angel who stood before me, who you now call Terri, smiled broadly and said, "I'm ready for that." And some of you cry in your sorrow and say "Why is this Human dead? How could such a thing be tolerated? Why would such a thing happen? Life is so precious." And I ask you this, as Terri looks on in her joy, would you take this away from her? Would you take that away from humanity, what she showed and did that resulted directly in her passing?
Start thinking of these things, perhaps differently. We've told you before that there are even those Human Beings who come in with a predisposition of suicide! What a horrible thought, you might say. "Kryon, could that even be appropriate?" And we say this: More than appropriate, it's by design! "But why should that be?" You might say. "What a horrible dishonorable death." And if that's your reaction, you're placing the whole grand picture in your own little Human box.
When you start examining it spiritually, without Human bias, you start to see that around a suicide there's this energy that develops. It's all about the family. Is there shame? Is there drama? Does it kick the family in the pants so that perhaps they might study things they never did - or perhaps they might they even look within themselves for spirituality? Blessed is the one that comes in with these tasks [like suicide]. There are so many of them who do. For these are the grease of personal change within families, and provide a gift that is grand!
You see, Spirit looks at these things differently. The curtain goes up, it goes down. You come and you go and there are profound lessons, some of which are taught harshly, by those who teach them through their own deaths.
"Well, what is it Kryon? Don't dodge the question with a diversion to suicide, for this isn't what Terri did. Is it proper or is it improper to have somebody in this vegetative state put to death by others around her?" Our answer: Exactly which Human are you talking about? You want a blanket answer, don't you? For six and half billion souls and paths, you want one answer for all. Well, you won't get one. For Terri, the answer is a solid yes. It was as it should have been. She came in with this grand opportunity to change the world, and she did it while everyone watched.
There is appropriateness in all things and sometimes you create for yourselves what seems to be inappropriate. Yet later you understand what the gift was within the challenge. Celebrate Terri, and don't think of this as a shameful thing that Humans did to her. Think of it instead as a book that was written for you to look at, one which pushes you to a place to ask, "What should we do about this now, personally? What should our legislatures do about this, if anything? How can we approach these things more humanely and with more honor? Is our culture addressing this issue? Are we addressing this issue personally?" Let's put these questions where they belong. It's not about "right to life"; it's about the appropriateness of "this life." Each case is individual, and some are profoundly given for the planet and for those around the individual.
Oh, as all of you came into this planet and leaned into the wind of birth separately, each was unique. Each of you has a different story, a different goal, but all have the same purpose: the elevation of the vibration of the planet. Sometimes it happens to many of you at the same time. We'll get to that before we finish. ..."
"THE THREE WINDS" – Feb 23-24, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Humanity, Home - other side of the veil, Wind of Birth - Birth, Wind of Existence - Life, Wind of Transition - Death)
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