Launching the campagne “Messages for Life”

by | July 29, 2015 | End of life, Old age and Dependency

 
On June 15, 2015, the World Day against maltreatment of the elderly, Alliance VITA launches the campaign “Messages for Life”, in the face of a growing isolation and exclusion of the elderly in society; we need to meet with our elders to receive what they have to pass on to us about life.
For the past few days the Alliance VITA team has been going out to meet elderly people: at the market place, at social evenings or in nursing homes. They offer them a time of listening and gather up their “Messages for life”. These are the principle messages that these folks would like to transmit to future generations. For instance, Simone, a hundred years old, previously a baker, met on June 8 by the teams from Lille, recommends: “Eat well, don’t drink, don’t smoke.” Mark, a woodworker of 82 years old, transmits this: “Words fly away, actions remain.”
At the issue of these meetings the folks agree to be photographed by the Alliance VITA members. Their portraits and messages are published on the Facebook campaign page (see below). In a society marked by the “age differences”, where older people are excluded from the new technologies in communication, it’s a way to allow them a place on the social network, posting their faces and giving them the opportunity to speak. “An old person sitting sees much further than a young person standing”, says a Burkinabe proverb. This is the firm conviction that drives the teams at Alliance VITA; these people who have already experienced a great deal are the wise people in our society. They have something to say to the younger generations. It’s up to us to choose whether to listen and receive their messages.
For the first visuals from the campaign, see (in French): facebook.com/messagespourlavie

Jurisprudence by the French Court of Cassation for Gestational Surrogacy

by | June 23, 2015 | Bioethics, Medically Assisted Procreation

 
On Friday June 19, 2015 the Court of Cassation in France examined appeals relating to two children with French fathers, born in Russia via Gestational Surrogacy (GS). These procedures were carried out abroad to circumvent the ban imposed the French Law.
On April 15, 2014 the Court of Appeal in Rennes, refused civil registration for the first child, but granted it to the second on December 16, 2014. Until this point, the Court of Cassation, France’s highest supreme court had rejected appeals to register children born to surrogate mothers abroad, in its civil registries.
In its judgment of June 16, 2014 on the Mennesson and Labassée cases, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France of violating children’s right to privacy. The Court held that “by thereby preventing not only the acknowledgement but also the establishment of parentage in regard to their biological father, France has gone beyond what is permitted by its margin of appreciation.” The Court concluded that the children’s rights with respect to their private lives had been breached, in violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The grounds invoked were the “confusing uncertainty about the possibility of being able to receive the French nationality,” and the ability to inherit from their “parents, as purchasers of Gestational Surrogacy.”
Regarding the issue of nationality, children born via GS always have a nationality, generally the one of the country in which they were born. Then, when they arrive in France, the French nationality can requested and obtained. Before 2013, attribution of French nationality was obtained after five years of residency. Since January 2013, the Taubira Circulaire now applies and the French nationality for the children is granted in the name of the French nationality of their parents, purchasers of GS.
The inheritance issue has been resolved by a letter written April 13, 2015 by the Civil Affairs and Seals Directorate (DACS) to the president of the Superior Council for Notaries (Conseil Supérieur du Notariat) recognizing children born through GS as legitimate heirs. This letter sent to the notaries clarifies that the “mere fact that these children were born through gestational surrogacy cannot at the outset lead the notary to exclude them as heirs of their parents’ estate, provided that the parentage with the latter can be proven by their foreign birth certificate even if the transcription of those acts was not registered in French civil registrars. “
Even though this ECHR judgment has inevitable weight to influence the debate, let us recall that the senior judges of the Court of Cassation are granted full freedom: they are under no obligation to give up their jurisprudence in favor of the ECHR’s assessment, if they are contradictory.
The June 19th plenary session, proved that the Court of Cassation could modify its position.  Attorney General, Jean-Claude Marin, the highest court magistrate has indeed concluded that he advised to “partially” register these children in the civil register, pending DNA paternity testing. However he refuses to recognize an “intended parent” by the principle of the inalienability of the human body and because “validating the automatic transcription of the foreign birth certificate on the French civil register would be equivalent to an automatic recognition of Gestational Surrogacy.” Furthermore, Advocate Spinosi, representing Rights Defender Mr. Jacques Toubon (who spontaneously intervened in the case,) has requested that parentage should be registered on children’s civil registrars.
The judgment is due on July 3, 2015.  If it concludes that birth certificates cas be transcribed onto the French registrars, it will be equivalent to supporting GS practices, which will put France in a serious legal contradiction. It could deeply upset our legal system by agreeing de facto that individuals (women and children) could be considered as an object of a contract.
Not once during the session, was the situation of the women raised, except by the lawyer of human rights defender who went as far as denying them, stating that there was no maternal bond between the child and the woman who carried it.
As a reminder: gestational surrogacy is illegal in France and it is “incurably void as contrary to public policy”. This means that GS is without effect in the eyes of the law. (French civil code article 16-7.) The French penal code, however, only sanctions it indirectly, by condemning the use of intermediaries (French penal code, article 227-12) or maternity simulation (French penal code, article 227-13)

Gestational Surrogacy: chronology of main decisions by the French Court of Cassation
1991: Even before any legislative appeal, in a historic decision at the Plenary Assembly on May 31st the French Court of Cassation condemned the practice of surrogacy, as contrary to the inalienable principles regarding human body and the conditions of human beings. (Cass. ASS. plén., 31 mai 1991, no 90-20.105)
As it would be useless to condemn the practice while still validating its consequences, the same decision refused the adoption of the child by the spouse of the father, since this would be misusing the institution of adoption.
1994: The Bioethics Laws result in the creation of the Article 16-7 of the French Civil Code, which provides that “any agreement for reproductive or gestational surrogacy would be null and void.”
2011: The French Court of Cassation confirms its’ rejection of transcribing these acts on French civil registers and its’ rejection to establishing a status of parentage possession. (Cass. 1re civ., 6 avr. 2011, n° 09-66.486, 10-19.053 ; and 09-17.130.) As “it is contrary to the principle of the inalienability of the person, a cardinal principle of French law, to produce effects to any agreement related to gestational surrogacy on account of another party, as null and void and contrary to public policy under articles 16-7 and 16-9 of the Civil Code.” This would result in French legislation designating a woman who would not have given birth to the child as a ‘Mother’. Yet, the only way to attribute the parentage of a child to a woman who did not carry him is by adoption ordered by a court and, precisely such an adoption is not realistically feasible as it would be considered as a misappropriation of the institution.
2013: Subsequently the French Court of Cassation takes position opposing the establishment of parentage of these children in regard to the biological father due to fraud committed pertaining to the applicable law committed by the latter. (Cass 1re Civ., 13 sept 2013, pourvoi n° 12-18.315, Bull.2013, I, n° 176 et n° 12-30.138, Bull.2013, I, n° 176.)
2014: In spite of the “Taubira Circulaire” of January 25 2013, The French Court of Cassation once again rejects the transcription on French civil registrars of the birth certificates from two children born to surrogate mothers in India.

Ignorance of the rights of man

Ignorance of the rights of man

by | June 8, 2015 | End of life, News, Publications

Interview with Tugdual Derville    Remarks summerized by Frédéric Aimard

Q. How do you react to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which validates Dr Kariger’s decision to stop feeding and hydration for Vincent Lambert?

Tugdual: With great sadness, I must admit. A sad and complicated affair, which runs the risk of ending in a dramatic manner, breaking a prohibition that is as vital for medical ethics as it is for the protection of the most vulnerable. This judgment is unjust first of all for Vincent and his family whose situation is already difficult (locked room, no more physiotherapy for over 1000 days, etc.).

But it also has other serious consequences, since it opens an insidious breach in the wall against killing, and does this even in the name of human rights! It’s just this sort of inversion between right and wrong, just and unjust, between good and evil that leads to the fall of civilisations! Should we recall that in 1950 it was largely through concern to protect handicapped people that the ECHR was created? I have read the voluminous text of their judgment in this case: all the energy put in to argue against the injustice of the law: written with precision and intelligence- perhaps in all good conscience – which is as seductive as it is terrifying. As with any technique, in and of itself neutral, the law can be used to reap good fruits or to reap poisonous fruits… Here, the result is fatal.

Q. Isn’t your objection to this judgment exaggerated, and moreover typical on the part of those who lose out, their loved ones and helpers?

Tugdual: The text published by five protesting judges supports our indignation. One has to read these lines that they signed together to separate themselves from their twelve colleagues, an exceptional deed: inversing certain bioethics, which too often consists in the art of complicating simple things to thereby legitimise transgressions. The Judges go directly to the heart of the matter:

“After mature reflection, we think that, now that everything has been said and written in this judgment, that the most subtle juridical distinctions have been established, and the thinnest hairs have been split into four, what is proposed comes down to neither more nor less than that a seriously handicapped person, who cannot communicate his wishes about his actual state, can, on the basis of several contestable affirmations, be deprived of the two components essential to the maintenance of life, namely, food and water.”

These five magistrates go so far as to conclude that the Court of Human Rights has lost the right to claim the title of “Conscience of Europe”, which it boasted for its 50th anniversary. These five people, coming from modest countries, make me think of the young Daniel, who bravely confronted in public the unjust death sentence of the beautiful Suzanna, ordered by two lecherous but frustrated old counsellors. We need perhaps to learn a lesson from societies whose culture is not quite yet gangrenous with such an eugenic ideology.

Q. In your view, does the ECHR validate euthanasia?

Tugdual: Absolutely. To define euthanasia there are two criteria: the intention to provoke death, and the result, whatever means is utilized. Hydration and feeding by a tube is a simple procedure which is in no way intended to “artificially maintain life” but is simply a means to take care of the patient by giving him life’s necessities. Let’s remember that Vincent, although very dependent, doesn’t need any medical treatment, no intravenous drip, no machines; he breathes autonomously. No different than for a baby who is bottle-fed, the food and water is not intended to either heal him or stop him from dying as if he were mortally ill. Whereas by stopping feeding and hydration cannot have the object of improving his life, but can only to provoke his death. So why do we have to play word games?

Here again the five dissident judges bring light to the subject by denouncing what is hidden behind the convoluted text of the long judgment, while continuing to assume their insinuating rebellious tone: “This case, is a case of euthanasia but without wanting to pronounce the name. In principle, it isn’t advisable to use emotional adjectives nor strong adverbs in judiciary documents, but in the end, it’s most certainly a  contradiction for the defending government to underline that French law forbids euthanasia, and that therefore euthanasia does not come into the question in this case.”

Q. Do you think that following this case, other instances of euthanasia will be approved?

Tugdual: Even if the French State Counsel has tried to prevent this contaminating effect, if only to reassure the carers and loved ones of some 1700 patients living in poorly-relating or neuro-vegetative states, the  management of Vincent Lambert’s specific case has clearly opened a breach…

Already the promoters of the lethal injection, all the while rejoicing at the judgment, continue to argue against  this mode of euthanasia as being too long and painful… A new medical team has taken over Vincent Lambert’s care, since Dr Kariger is no longer on the case, and they have already called in the family for consultation. If they follow the judgment of the ECHR and begin a new protocol for ending Vincent’s life, then we will see a wave of protest rise in the media in the time that it will take for him to die…

Moreover, the ECHR has refused to examine a request by Vincent Lambert’s parents who contest the lack of physical therapy treatment for their son. Reading their judgment, to take such a request into consideration, either it needed to have come from Vincent himself, or else he’d have to be dead!

In other words, the Court renounces its role of receiving requests from those close to unconscious persons whom they consider to be victims of maltreatment.

Q. How can you explain such an evolution in Europe?

Tugdual: Like the events which mark our history, there are some deep roots, and others that are a matter of conjecture/ happenstance. Our society which is based on performance, individualism and autonomy feels uneasy / intimidated  by the extremity of this kind of situation : handicapped people suffering severe apparently irremediable brain lesions. Personnel performing medical reanimation can feel guilty for having allowed these people to survive. Loved ones can be very committed to caring for them, but it is normal for them to pass through ambivalent phases. Some who are extremely devoted over months can become discouraged and can distance themselves. It’s not a question of judging them. Others may rediscover a balance in their life that might appear senseless, almost morally questionable to the majority.

I see Vincent Lambert as society’s archetypical scapegoat where he who seems useless no longer has any value and thus generates anxiety for healthy persons. However, for human beings, it is largely this free disinterested giving of one person to another which gives defines the value of a civilisation. And beware of the economic [/utilitarian] argument that certain people are beginning to exhibit, such as that internaut who wrote to Alliance VITA,        “Are you the people who’ll pay for Vincent Lambert’s hospital bill?  Get a little realistic»! At times when resources are stretched, humanity has a choice of how to behave towards the weakest of its members: either by solidarity or by exclusion.

ECHR/Lambert: Alliance VITA receives a most serious signal

by | June 5, 2015 | End of life, Press Releases

 Alliance VITA notes with sadness the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)  by 12 voices to 5, in favour having the a doctor cease giving food and water for Vincent Lambert, without referring to his parents.

Our thoughts go first to Vincent Lambert and to all the members of his family who were hanging on this crucial decision.

Quite apart from the situation of a man who was seriously handicapped but not dying, this decision will worry thousands of people who accompany some 1700 seriously brain-damaged patients living in France, and thousands of others in every country in Europe. Families, friends and those who care for them with devotion stand to be discouraged.

The honour of a society is to look after its most fragile members. Accepting the deliberate provoking of death by cutting off food and hydration for someone seriously handicapped and incapable of expressing himself, but not at death’s door, constitutes a serious signal for the whole of Europe, first inkling of a swing towards rejecting the most vulnerable category of citizens. Already cited in the press are those who promote lethal injections denouncing this mode of euthanasia in favour of another, more expedient one.

In the matter of Vincent Lambert, however, an alternative solution does exist. In fact, there is the  opportunity  to be taken in by a special unit for patients who suffer the heavy consequences of neurological accidents.

Alliance VITA pleads with health authorities, administrators and politicians alike, to accept the request to transfer Vincent Lambert to a unit specialised for his condition. Furthermore, Alliance VITA is by stopping food and hydration, which can only have one possible goal : provoking death for brain-damaged or other heavily dependent patients.

Gestational Surrogacy : the Paradiso and Campanelli Case before the Grand Chamber (High Court) of the European Court of Human Rights

by | June 3, 2015 | Bioethics, Medically Assisted Procreation

During the meeting held on June 1, 2015, five judges of the Grand Chamber accepted to refer the Paradiso and Campanelli Case to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, heeding the request of the Italian Government. This case “concerns the care, by the Italian Social services, of a nine-month-old child born in Russia, via a GS contract signed by a couple who would subsequently be proven to have no biological connection with the child.”
The Italian couple in question had had recourse to a surrogate mother and in-vitro fertilization in Russia. The Italian authorities had refused to register the parentage linking the child to the married couple in the Civil Registry as the biological connection had not been proven. The couple challenged this decision before the court, going as far as to appeal before the ECHR.
By the verdict of January 27, 2015 announced by the second section of the Court composed of seven judges, the ECHR had recognized the couple as “victims” and the Italian authorities were accused of having violated their rights of respecting family and private life. However this verdict is not yet definitive, because the case has been referred to the Grand Chamber, composed of 17 judges, whose verdict will be final.
The “No Maternity Traffic” organization partnered by Alliance VITA, had held a rally on the same day in Strasbourg at the time when the case was examined in order to recall the right of women and children to be protected from GS.