{"id":10860,"date":"2015-06-09T17:37:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-09T17:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/a-warning-for-europe-court-ruling-undermines-right-to-life-guarantees-for-comatose-50323\/"},"modified":"2015-06-09T17:37:00","modified_gmt":"2015-06-09T17:37:00","slug":"a-warning-for-europe-court-ruling-undermines-right-to-life-guarantees-for-comatose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2015\/06\/a-warning-for-europe-court-ruling-undermines-right-to-life-guarantees-for-comatose\/","title":{"rendered":"A warning for Europe: court ruling undermines right to life guarantees for comatose"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/p>\n

Strasbourg, France, Jun 9, 2015 \/ 11:37 am (CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- The European Court of Human Rights\u2019 recent decision to allow the removal of a comatose French man\u2019s intravenous feeding tube could have far-reaching consequences, one legal observer has said.<\/p>\n

\tGregor Puppinck, director of the European Centre for Law and Justice, warned that the court\u2019s decision \u201cputs at risk the \u2018legal death\u2019 of tens of thousands of patients in Europe\u201d who are in the same situation as Vincent Lambert, a 39-year-old who has been in a coma at a Reims hospital for seven years.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe respect for their right to life is no longer guaranteed by the European Court of Human Rights,\u201d Puppinck said.<\/p>\n

\tLambert\u2019s case was taken to the European Court last year after France\u2019s high court ruled to end his life support. By a 12-5 vote, the European Court of Human Rights ruled June 5 that the choice to stop Lambert\u2019s intravenous feeding did not violate European rights laws.<\/p>\n

\tPuppinck said the ruling means it is legal for states to \u201ccause the death of a patient in a minimally conscious state.\u201d He objected that the ruling means \u201cwe can again legally induce the death of a disabled patient who did not ask to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tLambert sustained serious head injuries in a traffic accident in September 2008. The injuries left him \u201ctetraplegic and in a state of complete dependency,\u201d according to the European Court.<\/p>\n

\tHis fate became the center of a legal controversy. Lambert\u2019s wife and physicians said that his intravenous feeding tube should be removed, while his parents and two of his siblings took the case to court to continue his nourishment. The parents were hopeful of signs of progress and wanted Lambert to receive better care.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThey are trying to make us say we don\u2019t want him to go, but it is not at all the case, we don\u2019t want him to be snuffed out,\u201d Lambert\u2019s mother Viviane said earlier this year, according to BBC News.<\/p>\n

\tPuppinck said that the refusal to guarantee Lambert\u2019s right to life and his medical care means the court is \u201cturning a page in the history of human rights in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tHe charged that the ruling revives practices like those which were condemned following the war crimes trials at Nuremberg after the Second World War. Some of those trials convicted doctors who practiced the euthanasia of disabled persons.<\/p>\n

\tPuppinck said the ruling violates the founding motives of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. The convention protects the right to life except for a death penalty execution following a person\u2019s conviction of a crime.<\/p>\n

\tThe five European Court judges who voted in favor of continued care for Lambert stated that in their view, the court\u2019s decision has \u201cforfeited\u201d its title of \u201cThe Conscience of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tA lower French court had previously ruled that Lambert should continue to receive food and hydration. In January 2014 a panel of nine judges in Chalons-en-Champagne said removing food and hydration is \u201ca grave and clearly illegal attack on the fundamental right to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe panel added that Lambert is \u201cneither sick nor at the end of his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tEuthanasia is illegal in France. However, a 2005 law allows physicians to refrain from using \u201cdisproportionate\u201d treatments \u201cwith no other effect than maintaining life artificially.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe bishops of France reiterated Catholic teaching against euthanasia in a January 2014 document, stating that God\u2019s commandment \u201cThou shall not kill\u201d is \u201cthe foundation of all social life respectful of others, especially the most vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe bishops pointed out the contradiction in seeking to prevent suicide in society while also allowing it in some cases.<\/p>\n

\tWhile Catholic ethics do not require extraordinary means to preserve life, they recognize the provision of food and hydration as an ordinary standard of care.<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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