{"id":201102,"date":"2019-04-28T21:49:57","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T02:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=201102"},"modified":"2019-04-27T00:24:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-27T05:24:00","slug":"survived-dehydration-french-court-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/survived-dehydration-french-court-die\/","title":{"rendered":"He survived dehydration once, but a French court says he must die this time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Life Site News<\/a>)\u00a0Vincent Lambert, known as France\u2019s Terri Schiavo, has lost his last possible legal recourse in his home country against a medical decision ordering slow euthanasia.<\/p>\n

The efforts to save the live of the minimally conscious, tetraplegic 42-year-old man by his parents and two siblings will go no further in French jurisdictions after the Conseil d\u2019Etat (Council of State) decided Tuesday that Lambert must in his own \u201cinterests\u201d be deprived of food and fluids and placed under deep sedation until he dies.<\/p>\n

Pierre and Viviane Lambert and two of their children appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, which will decide whether their case is admissible. But in a previous ruling, the ECHR already decided in 2015<\/a> that a decision to make Vincent die of thirst and hunger was in line with the European Convention of Human Rights, whose member states are free to decide that artificial feeding and hydration can be defined as \u201ctreatment,\u201d not \u201ccare.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is little hope at this stage that the European Court will accept the case, and its decision is expected to be handed down soon.<\/p>\n

In a last-ditch attempt, a second international appeal was made to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (OHCHR) that verifies compliance with the convention of the same name ratified by France in 2010.<\/p>\n

The OHCSR will also rule on the appeal\u2019s admissibility as a first step. In practice, if not in law, the death decision will not be executed before then. The decision is also expected to be suspended if the OHCCSR agrees to examine the Lambert\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0UK horror: Patients in \u2018vegetative state\u2019 can now be killed without consent<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Lambert lived through a first attempt to starve him to death in 2013, surviving for 31 days without food and very little liquids. Doctors aiming to put an end to his life said \u201cat the time\u201d that they didn\u2019t really know how to proceed in these cases. But under recent new protocols fixed by law, no fluids are given leading rapidly to death by dehydration \u2013\u00a0or thirst, to put it bluntly.<\/p>\n

A complicated sequence of medical decisions, judiciary appeals and staff renewals at the hospital in Reims, where Lambert has been virtually kept him in a locked room in a palliative care unit since then, gave him a five-year respite.<\/p>\n

But during the same period, legislative efforts have been made to facilitate \u201cend-of-life decisions\u201d involving terminal sedation together withdrawal of feeding tubes and hydration. [Below is a video from 2015, explaining more of the legal fight between Vincent’s wife and his parents.]<\/p>\n