The Global Sociology Blog

Via Le Monde,

La justice rejette la demande d’euthanasie active formulée par Chantal Sébire
LEMONDE.FR | 17.03.08

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Chantal Sebire is a woman suffering from a rare tumor in the nasal cavity that has disfigured her and is incurable and leaves her in excruciating pain. She wants to die. She wanted the courts to allow her doctor to help her end her life. The Court denied her request. Technically, euthanasia is legal in France but legally, doctors are not allowed to end a patient’s life. Mrs Sebire has already indicated that she will not appeal the decision but that she will find a solution outside of France, probably Switzerland.

This is ridiculous. This woman is of sound mind. No one is coercing her. She knows what she wants. She only wanted to die in a legal fashion. And why not? This is what she looked like before the tumor on the left, and what she looks like now on the right.

And the photo does not do justice to the pain this woman experiences all the time. She has recently lost her sight, smell and taste. The Court took a cop-out here. They could have ruled in her favor and let this woman die rather than have to go through the trouble of having to find a solution abroad.

As a sociologist, I can’t help but wonder what is the holdup when it comes to accepting euthanasia. After all, it should fall under the category of individual rights. We can do a lot of things to ourselves without state interference, a lot of them damaging to ourselves. There is no reason to believe that if euthanasia was more widely allowed, then people would line up to kill themselves legally. So what’s the deal? There are the religious arguments, of course, that we do not own our own lives, but in Europe in the 21^st century, what proportion of the population would believe that? But then, you have to be willing to be on the side of a “life sentence to pain”, as various associations for death with dignity have said. There is also the slippery slope argument: once we go down that road, aren’t we on the road to eugenism? It is another lousy argument because any euthanasia statute would be regulated and would have safeguards. (I am sparing everybody the reiteration of the Chiavo circus organized by the religious nuts.)

And then, there is the ultimate hypocrisy: we do already practice euthanasia in France. Terminal patients are consistently given high doses of morphine not just to dull the pain and they know it. Everybody knows it. But it’s done behind the scenes. It is time to let people take control of their lives when medical options are no longer available. How many of us would want to live like Chantal Sebire?

• Photo source, left: AFP Jeff Pachoud, from Le Monde.

• Photo source, right: AFP, from the BBC.