"The highest civil court in France has ordered that food and water may be removed from a severely disabled man, who has been artificially fed and hydrated in a hospital in the country for over 10 years.
The Court of Cassation ruled Friday that Vincent Lambert, 42, can be taken off life support. This is the final ruling, and there can be no appeal, the BBC reported.
This means Lambert’s parents have exhausted their legal options in their years-long fight to keep their son alive. However, the parents said Friday that they will press murder charges if Lambert is removed from food and hydration, according to AFP.
A French court had ruled in favor of euthanizing Lambert last month. He had been briefly removed from feeding and hydration tubes May 20, when a challenge passed the Paris appeals court and the hospital was ordered to return the support.
'In any other context, killing by starvation and dehydration is considered a crime against humanity,' said Alexandra Snyder, executive director of Life Legal, a group that advocates for the vulnerable, in a June 28 statement.

'Yet in France-as in the United States-we routinely impose this type of torturous death on individuals who are disabled. This has to stop. Disability should not be a death sentence.'"
For the Nazis, "euthanasia" (which is translated as "good death") represented a euphemistic term for a clandestine murder program created for the systematic killing of mentally and physically disabled patients living in institutional settings throughout Germany. The National Socialist's "Euthanasia" program would set the stage for the Holocaust: the mass murder of Jews and others who were deemed either racially inferior or ideologically unsuitable.
In the words of Dr. Leo Alexander, Chief U.S. Medical Consultant at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: 'Whatever proportions these crimes finally assumed, it became evident to all who investigated them that they had started from small beginnings."
Dr. Alexander referred to "a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of physicians." These physicians came to accept the notion that there is such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived.
In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II reminded us that:
"Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person. It requires that the necessary conditions be present for the advancement both of the individual through education and formation in true ideals, and of the 'subjectivity' of society through the creation of structures of participation and shared responsibility. Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and sceptical relativism are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this regard that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism."
We ignore this warning at our own peril.
Francis has expressed profound sadness over the deaths of
Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Martinez and his 23-month-old daughter Valeria. See here.
Is he also saddened by the death sentence being imposed on Mr. Lambert?
How about baby India? Left in a plastic bag to suffocate, has this horrible crime, even though it cannot be manipulated to advance a partisan political agenda, caused Francis to feel profound sadness?
The deaths of Alberto Martinez and his daughter are a real tragedy. But this tragedy occurred as Mr. Martinez attempted to enter this country illegally with his daughter, thereby placing her at risk.
Baby India wasn't committing a crime. Nor has Mr. Lambert. Where is the profound sadness and outrage from Francis?
The demon Moloch demands blood sacrifice. Everywhere we see respect for the sanctity of human life being eroded. We need Shepherds who can offer us something more than selective outrage in the service of partisan politics. We need Shepherds who advance the teaching of the Didache
Without exception, each life is precious and should be protected at all cost. Only evil dictates that some lives are disposable.
ReplyDelete"The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit either as an end in itself or as a means to a good end. It is in fact a grave act of disobedience to the moral law, and indeed to God himself, the author and guarantor of that law; it contradicts the fundamental virtues of justice and charity. "Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action". (Pope Saint John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, No. 57).
DeleteWith so much clarity! Thank you.
Delete"The devil knows his time is short, and he is on a rampage" these timely words from my parish priest.Satan cannot hurt God, so he attacks God's children, especially the most innocent and frail among us. Francis is woefully silent on many urgent issues. If it doesn't serve the underlying socialist agenda of (false) mercy it remains unaddressed.His silence on the really important issues is deafening, and it speaks volumes.
ReplyDeleteTo deprive a human being of food and water is to torture them slowly to death. Nothing humane or compassionate about it ,the people who conceive it ,order it and carry it out are psychopaths.
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