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Cancer victim Chantal Sebire found dead at home

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The French woman who made headlines across the world due to her battle with a horrifying facial cancer has been found dead at her home today.

Chantal Sebire was left so distresingly disfigured by the rare esthesioneuroblastoma (ENB) - an uncommon malignant neoplasm of the nasal vault - that she appealed for the legal right to end her own life.

Earlier this week a court in Dijon, eastern France, rejected Sebire's request to be "accompanied to her death with dignity".
jcmoisan

25 responses // Cancer victim Chantal Sebire found dead at home

  • This is the most tragic story. I hope the French authorities are proud of themselves for what they've forced this woman to do. No-one has the right to veto anyone's decision on their own mortality, it has nothing to do with anyone but the person themselves.
    phillyharper
  • http://current.com/items/88870592_euthanasia_plea_rejec...
    More on this story here.
    abbym0308
  • A most tragic story, my heart goes out to Chantal. I pray that she has now found the peace and comfort she so rightly deserves.

    I think we should all look at the question of euthanasia on each individual case, and not pass a law of 'one size fits all'.
    Magone10
  • Every minute of every day we need to be grateful. When we feel life is hard, look to the left, look to the right: it could be worse. My heart breaks for this woman and for her family! May she now rest in peace!
    Radiating
  • It is unfortunate that she was not afforded a painless death; and in doing so the French govt. is making a very ignorant step that pervades human rights.
    Thargor19
  • this is sad. at the very least let her case be a reminder of how obsolete and inhumane Laws can be.
    stephenthomson
  • I feel for this lady, may she rest in peace.

    I vehemently disagree with assisted suicide laws, they're pointless. If you are truly committed to ending it you should be no more afraid to eat a bullet than you are to take a dose from a syringe. Who cares if you're violating a law, it's not like you're going to be around to be prosecuted anyway. I think that if you make it too easy some people will NOT put the proper amount of thought into it before "exercising their right". How many people have contemplated suicide and might would have gone through with it if it were an "ala carte" option at the doctors office, but later decided it wasn't worth it b/c it wasn't easily accessible? How many of those people have gone on to lead productive lives? Hell, if the gun is too violent for you I'm sure there are plenty of other methods that you can find over the internet. Making suicide a "socially acceptable" option benefits NO ONE.
    Liberal_Extinction
  • If the gov't were to legalize assisted suicide , the red tape the process would invariably involve would dissuade anyone from going that route anyhow . I have to agree with lib. extinction on this one .
    The most absurd thing about this issue is the assumption that only if the gov't legalizes suicide can suicide be "dignified" - what's really being requested is access to legal drugs - a further absurditiy is that the reason why a person can't get the proper drugs for the job in the first place is that the gov't regulates them . It's some kind of catch 22 . If it's a matter of ethics one's concerned about , you're basically asking the gov't to decide what "ethical " is too - if it's god's judgement you're worried about , then you're asking the gov't to decide what precedent god should follow .
    While i sympathize with the woman ( and it doesn't hurt that she was an attractive white lady from france ) , i can't help but think of her as a victim of a collective ignorance pervading her society which has , for far too long , been the norm .
    malathion
  • Before I say anything, this woman died a horrendous death, unspeakable. God rest her soul.
    But why would she allow herself to be photographed and posted in the news? Out of anger against the court? I am surprised how wise the responses are on this blog. Way to see the negative drawback such a law could have. Now, why don't we see eye to eye about killing babies? That involves more than even an individual's choice of their own life, and a judgement sentence on an uninformed little naked person by an indifferent and wrongly informed parent.
    jdchristianson
  • This lady should have recieved the medical assistance she needed to end her life without pain and with dignity. It's the humane thing to do. I don't know how she managed to take her own life, she was blind and otherwise handicapped by her illness, but thankfully she managed to do so. I don't think it should be up to a very sick individual to puchase a gun, procure a lethal dose of drugs, breath in car exhaust fumes, or any of the other methods people have suggested here.

    She was fortunate to have been able to carry out her own wishes, but many people who want to die are phyically unable to end their life and they need compassionate medical assistance.

    How many of you opposed to legally assisted suicide could stand to watch an injured animal writhe in pain, without wishing to end it's suffering. Why is it alright to allow people to suffer so terribly when they are ready to die.
    SusanB
  • " killing " - " judgement sentence" - "uninformed " - "indifferent " - "wrongly " . No reasonable dialogue can be conducted when the terms are pre-loaded .
    If anyone desiring assisted suicide can afford it , fly to Zurich - the last i heard it's still legal there . So far as any person living in a country which bans assisted suicide who wants to die peacefully and can't afford to die with compassionate assistance in Zurich , OD yourself on tranquilizers and painkillers - that simple . And if you are so far advanced into the last stage of a terminal illness that you're not in the possession of your own mind , and can neither fly to Zurich even if you had the means , nor administer meds to yourself , then you are screwed ( mercifully,you wouldn't know you were )- such is life - such as it is now .
    Is "assisted suicide" a luxury ? As things are now , i can't see a "blue collar" average bloke being able to afford dying with "dignity" . Imagine any corporation or insurance company covering assisted suicide . Could assisted suicide ever be a "health benefit" ?
    malathion
  • This poor woman. How brave to have gone through all of this. My guess for why she allowed herself to be photographed is that she felt passionate about her belief in her right to die with dignity, and wanted to do so legally. Even if she was not successful in her attempt to get her government to help her, she brought attention to the subject, she knew that she was horrribly disfigured. Perhaps she wanted people to see her face so they could get a glimpse at her reality, and the fact that even a disease causing such drastic damage did not merit her government's blessing to make a choice for herself.

    The Netherlands has a system which works.

    Dutch Penal Code Articles 293 and 294 make both euthanasia and assisted suicide illegal, even today. However, as the result of various court cases, doctors who directly kill patients or help patients kill themselves will not be prosecuted as long as they follow certain guidelines. In addition to the current requirements that physicians report every euthanasia/assisted-suicide death to the local prosecutor and that the patient's death request must be enduring (carefully considered and requested on more than one occasion), the Rotterdam court in 1981 established the following guidelines:


    1.The patient must be experiencing unbearable pain.
    2.The patient must be conscious.
    3.The death request must be voluntary.
    4.The patient must have been given alternatives to euthanasia and time to consider these alternatives.
    5.There must be no other reasonable solutions to the problem.
    6.The patient's death cannot inflict unnecessary suffering on others.
    7.There must be more than one person involved in the euthanasia decision.
    8.Only a doctor can euthanize a patient.
    9.Great care must be taken in actually making the death decision.
    http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/fctholl.htm
    Swizzle2
  • "6.The patient's death cannot inflict unnecessary suffering on others."

    So are you going to round up EVERY surviving family member and get them to OK the easy button? Life IS full of challenges, that which doesn't kill us only makes us stronger. I honestly don't see the logic in making something like suicide EASIER on people. Not that it could never be unanimous among friends and family but the vast majority of the time I'm pretty sure there is ALWAYS someone left behind to suffer the decision. Making it legal to do is pointless, you can't prosecute a dead person, if they truly are committed to giving up why should they give a rats ass about the legality of it?
    Liberal_Extinction
  • Sad.
    ILiveonaClock
  • This poor woman, may she rest in peace.
    sabkl
  • provision no. 7 of the '81 Rotterdam protocol stipulates that more than 1 person must be involved in the decision - i assume that doesn't include the Dr. - which begs the question : what kind of person qualifies as the required one other person ? What if i'm a homeless person with no contacts whatsoever ? What if i'm a home-bound elderly person with no friends or known relatives ? It's a curious clause .
    malathion
  • Malathion

    I realize now how loaded my own statements can be...good call. How about the difference between a lethal injection and simply taking someone off of life support? Is there a difference? Anyone?
    jdchristianson
  • Rest in Paradise...
    Day2Day1nSociety
  • i am a psychiatric nurse; every day i see pts slowly killing themselves with medications that are legal. i support euthanasia and people who are truly ill having a pain-free and dignified death. it is interesting to me that euthanasia is illegal; yet everyday i'm allowed to give methadone and similar medications to pts, only to slowly kill them.
    gennifermu
  • Showing them a picture is not going to get rid of STDs. It sounds ridiculous that an online group would support each other in saying they want to die, romantically. From what I have heard and experienced, at that point they need to give God a chance by praying and have someone with faith pray for their healing. I mean what do you have to loose when you just want to die? People with cancer are miraculously cured all the time because of prayer and their faith in God. A woman in my church was healed, and a young woman also who constantly said that she would be healed even though the doctors said she would never survive, and many other accounts that I have heard of, not even doing research to find such accounts. Even the cartoons pray as they are about to fall off of a cliff, of course they never die (except japanese anime, and Bambi's mother) So why wouldn't people who are suffering to the point of wanting to kill themselves not consider the reality of faith. Its not a myth, otherwise people would straight up disregard it and atheism would have been installed from the very start.
    jdchristianson
  • I have a chronic pain condition, I was horrified to find that in dogs and cats the condition can be a qualification for euthanasia. Since finding that out my views have been somewhat difficult to grapple with I don't know what I would decide should the disease progress to its worst possible end however if I were in this woman's situation there is no doubt I would choose assisted suicide. Who would honestly have begrudged the one additional week of suffering rather than an early end. I am usually against such practices but in this case and in many others it just seems too tragic. End of life care is so deplorable, there is no excuse for both death and treatment to be so horrifically painful. There is an old saying that there are worse things than death. I think in this case, we may have seen one of them.
    ocanada
  • Damn. All I can say is tragic. If the courts had told me no, I would find the nearest heroin dealer, and buy as much as I could. What else would you expect from a country with no civil rights
    jlaboy
  • I can't imagine the pain she was going through, but if it was enough for her to petition to end her own life then I hope she had finally found the peace she deserves.
    lifestudentno83
  • How sad, may she rest in peace.
    But I also have something to say to Liberal_Extinction about how if you're willing to legally commit suicide why can't you "eat a bullet".
    Do you realize the amount of people who DON'T die from "eating a bullet"? There are so many people who, in an attempt to kill themselves, merely massaviely injured a part of their brain, causing them to not only remain living, but to do so in a worse state tan previously.
    If someone is serious enough about ending their own life, the least the government can do is allow the person to do it dignified and in a way that is almost "fool-proof".
    45RPM
  • OO buckshot - there , there's the proper "bullet" - if 00 buckshot doesn't have you at the pearly gates and under investigation , then you were meant to be botched .
    malathion

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