by NexDev | September 21, 2015 | End of life, Palliative care
On October 3, the opponents to euthanasia are called upon to demonstrate before the new regional prefectures. Alliance VITA’s general delegate explains the reasons.
What is the status of the legislative process concerning the end of life?
Tugdual Derville: The so-called Claeys-Leonetti law comes up for a second reading at the National Assembly starting October 5, 2015, finally without having been modified by the Senate. In June when presented to the Senators, the strange result was that after in-depth analysis by the commission, then in séances, the text was considerably altered. All the ambiguities had been clarified, notably those which we had denounced as “masked euthanasia”.
But during the formal vote by the Senate, the government obtained the rejection of the new text. The bill thus retains the same weaknesses of the bill voted for in March 2015. Even the shocking adverb “unnecessarily” that Marisol Touraine had promised to eliminate from the expression “unnecessarily prolong life, remained…
You called for a regional demonstration on October 3, 2015. Why?
It is imperative that our voices should be heard, as the Association for the Right to Die in Dignity (ADMD) is pulling out all stops. We will therefore join the 13 protest movements under the single banner of “Relieve Suffering without Killing”, in the city prefectures of our new regions on Saturday October 3, at 11 a.m.
The danger of this text should be understood by all. For palliative care, we should also obtain that the government should pass from words to actions. For three years, they have continually recycled the same promise, month after month, to put into place a development plan for palliative care. It has become an elusive holy grail, and alibi n°1 for the law regarding the end of life, whereas it contains nothing concrete in this domain.
What do you think of those who support this law, all the while saying they are opposed to euthanasia?
That they are playing with fire. It’s easy to prove the text’s ambiguity. In addition, among the people who believe that they must support it, many spontaneously confide that it is useless as well as dangerous. I think that this is even the major opinion of deputy Jean Leonetti for whom the law is named after. With high-profile media coverage – whereas it doesn’t concern many – the ADMD poses as a “scarecrow”, leading some to support an inherently bad option in order to avoid the worst. But this is a dangerous gamble. With the phrase “profound and continuous sedation until death” combined with stopping hydration, we are tilting towards the slippery descent towards euthanasia.
Why ?
To deliberately provoke death within a few days is the definition of euthanasia, even if the word is not mentioned. Is it fair to circumvent the definition of the word? This potential drift will be confused with legitimate practices of sedation. The public is already troubled. We have witnessed this by the calls received at our SOS End of Life listening site. The promoters of lethal injection may well say that their straightforward and expeditious project is less hypocritical…
They already take up the subject of what they improperly call « dying from hunger and thirst” (it is more appropriate to say malnutrition and dehydration). We know how the media can play up “interminable agony”.
What is your position in relation to the palliative care movement?
A number of caretakers – doctors, nurses, psychologists, volunteers – support us in protest against this law; and they are well-positioned to measure the threat of these provisions in their practice…
On an institutional level, the palliative care movement seems to be at a crossroads. If the majority of its members remain hostile towards euthanasia, some are ambiguous…Especially for assisted suicide. The weak option of sedation risks leading to masked euthanasia. Distilling euthanasia into palliative care was the real objective for the promoters of euthanasia.
And this is what happened in Belgium where both practices are now mixed-up together, creating a worrisome and confusing situation. But we shouldn’t limit the debate exclusively to caregivers and those dispensing palliative care. Death concerns all of us. All medical disciplines are concerned. In Great Britain, where Parliament just voted against assisted suicide, the witness of handicapped persons has had a huge impact. With Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, who sponsors ‘Relieve Suffering without Killing’, we say “Don’t touch the Untouchables!” Before the “end of life” law, as in our demonstrations, the most fragile are on the front line.
Interviewed by Frédéric Aimard
by NexDev | September 19, 2015 | End of life, Laws, surveys, protagonists, News, Palliative care
On Monday October 5, 2015, the legal amendment concerning the end of life will be examined at the second reading at the National Assembly. Alliance VITA adds its voice to the call to action “Relieve Suffering without Killing” which invites people to demonstrate on Saturday, October 3, 2015 at 11 a.m. in the 13 large city prefectures of the new regions in France, to denounce the perpetual postponement since 2012 for developing palliative care.
This motion, amended, but not voted on by the Senate on June 23, 2015, will return to the Assembly according to the preceding version which was voted on March 17, 2015.
This law is dangerous and has gray zones:
- It intends to implement “profound and continuous sedation until death” which opens the door to the risk of euthanasia, whether it might be explicit or masked.
- It is likely to ruin or denature the necessary efforts in favor of palliative care.
- It is likely to threaten or exclude elderly, handicapped or seriously ill people.
For Tugdual Derville, general delegate for Alliance VITA, author of The Battle against Euthanasia and one of the spokesmen for Relieve Suffering without Killing : “To guarantee the sickest, the most dependent, and the elderly their rightful place in the heart of society is an urgent social matter. The government’s promise to develop palliative care, without real decisions nor concrete means, has become a constant alibi for imposing this law concerning the end of life. But this law has gray zones, produces anxiety, and divisions, flirting with a slippery slope towards euthanasia.”
Founder and webmaster for the web site www.sosfindevie.org, Alliance VITA has been heard on a regular basis before Parliament in the course of its missions, projects and successive legal propositions concerning the end of life. Alliance VITA is a member of the associations which support the movement “Relieve Suffering Without Killing”, sponsored by the quadriplegic, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, whose story provided the inspiration for the film ‘The Untouchables’.
by NexDev | September 18, 2015 | Abortion, Maternity, Press Releases
Alliance VITA regrets that the Senators did not follow their social affairs Commission’s recommendation which re-established the reflection period to seven days, and sounds the alarm regarding this type of political decision, taken without any proper democratic debate on the question, and which could have serious consequences for women.
Alliance VITA has repeatedly intervened on this subject, recalling the importance of a real alternative and preventive policy to abortion. Helping women faced with unplanned or difficult pregnancies is essential to avoid making abortions inevitable.
For Tugdual Derville, the association’s general delegate: “How can we justify the suppression of the reflection period when the destiny of a human being’s existence is at stake! This delay is important because it gives women some time to reflect. And giving time to women protects them from panicking and from the outside pressure which might push them to abort.”
For Caroline Roux, coordinator for Alliance VITA’s Listening Services; « When confronted with the question of abortion, women are often facing real dilemmas. Having accompanied women faced with this question for the past 15 years, I’ve been witness to the profound inner questioning that abortion raises. To push these women into hasty decision, is to misunderstand what they are going through when dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, when they feel alone and in panic, with so many questions spinning in their heads.
by NexDev | September 18, 2015 | Bioethics, Human embryo research
On Friday September 18, 2015, The Guardian newspaper reported that Dr. Kathy Niakan, stem cell researcher at London’s Francis Crick Institute has filed a request with the “Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority” (HFEA), the U.K. governmental regulatory organization for fertility techniques, seeking a license to perform genome editing on human embryos.
Thanks to the CrispR/Cas9 technique, it is today possible to replace, snip out, or insert a gene to the DNA of a cell. It is a rather simple genetic modification, relatively affordable, and manageable on all cells, whether vegetable, animal or human.
The British researcher has requested authorization to use human embryos from In Vitro Fecundations (IVF) in order to modify their DNA, to explore the genes involved in the first stages of embryonic development, especially those related to placenta cell differentiation. After genetic modification, these embryos would not be intended to be implanted to achieve a pregnancy, and would be destroyed. If her request is accepted, the first genetically modified embryos could rapidly be created in her laboratory, even if the researcher “doesn’t know how long it will take to carry out the project and if she will obtain sufficient human embryos.”
Last April, American scientists pushed for a global moratorium. Just afterward, a Chinese team using the CrispR/Cas9 technique published a very controversial study.
For Tugdual Derville, Alliance VITA’s general delegate, « We are playing with fire. This new step should alert us. Even if these techniques are not yet perfectly operational, they are advancing at a vertiginous pace and suggest the possibility of creating genetically- modified children in the future, with a real eugenic and scientific abuse. Modifying the genome of an embryo would also imply his descendants, and in the long run, a large part of Humanity. Manipulating the genome of human embryos is a red boundary line not to be crossed!”
by NexDev | September 18, 2015 | End of life, Euthanasia and Suicide, News
On September 15, 2015, the Criminal Court in Rennes condemned Mrs. Laurence Nait Kaoudjt to a five-year suspended prison sentence, for having killed her eight-year-old daughter, Melanie, in 2010, who was severely handicapped since birth.
This case has once again highlighted the situation of people who care for severely ill or handicapped persons on a daily basis, who are often very dedicated, but progressively and dramatically may end up feeling alone and completely burnt-out.
This 49 year-old single mother, who raised her child alone since birth, expressed during the trial, how her relationship with her daughter was life-consuming: “Handicap it is 7 days a week. We slept together because I was afraid she might fall. (…) That was our life, always one with the other, fused together”. Thus, she continues to affirm having tempted to commit suicide without success, at different occasions on the night of the act. And her lawyer, pleading for her acquittal, underlines an expert’s comments: “They were as one person, fused together, one skin for both of them…”
She also explained her misgivings with institutions and her conviction that no one else could care for her child: “For me, it was very complicated to leave my daughter with an outsider; I had the impression of abandoning her, simply because she is without defense.” Just when her daughter was going to be admitted in a medically educational institute, wasn’t this perspective of seeing her leave, felt as a separation leading to death ?
Several witnesses have underlined her suspicion, her anxiety, “her great suffering” before a hopeless situation of a disability without a successful outcome. The experts described her state of “physical and psychological exhaustion”: that state which moved her towards an “altruistic suicide” motivated by the “despair to the point of giving up her own life, and killing her own child that she loved”. Her lawyer thus resumed the dramatic case: “This is a crime and an act of love at the same time; it is simultaneously terrifying and sublime”.
The Attorney General (representing the society, during a criminal trial) asked the jury to show proof of “empathy” faced with the suffering of this mother who had attempted suicide, but to also show proof of “reason” since it also concerns a murder. He explains why it is important to declare guilt symbolically: “No one is the owner of his child. Even if that child is handicapped, he is autonomous; he is entitled to his own life, his own humanity. If you declare today that she is not guilty, you deny that humanity. To give a common reference point to society, we always have the choice not to strangle a little girl.”
For Alliance VITA this case highlights once again, the painful situation of people who accompany disabled or severely ill persons on a daily basis, often being very dedicated but who ultimately end up feeling dramatically alone and burnt-out. A symbolic sentence is necessary to prove that one cannot kill for love; that every human being’s life is precious and is to be respected, even if it is frail or very fragile. At the same time, the suspended prison sentence can be interpreted as the will to take into account the atrocious confusion and the mothers’ hopelessness resulting from exhaustion and isolation.
Note: On the same day that the trial was being held, the deputies examined a second hearing on the bill on society’s adjustment to the ageing population. This text contains a symbolic measure concerning “caregivers” who take care of a loved one elderly person, dependent or handicapped: the recognition of a “right to relief”, by the grant of 80 million € to finance one week’s care for a dependent person in order that their family caregiver can rest. This possibility to recuperate, allowing the person to step back and to be assisted by others, wouldn’t this have been a necessary for Méline’s mother?
