PLOMBIERES-LES-DIJON,
France (AFP) - - A severely disfigured French woman was found dead
at her home Wednesday, a local prosecutor said, only two days after
a court rejected her request for the right to die, in a case that
has stirred much emotion in France.
The high court in Dijon, eastern
France, decided Monday to side with the prosecution which argued
that current legislation does not allow the doctor of 52-year-old
former schoolteacher Chantal Sebire to prescribe lethal
drugs.
In her appeal to the court, Sebire
had said she did not want to endure further pain and subject
herself to an irreversible worsening of her condition. She asked
the court to allow her doctor to help her end her life.
Sebire's body was found at her
home in the eastern town of Plombieres-les-Dijon in the Bourgogne
region on Wednesday afternoon.
The cause of her death was not
immediately known, Dijon prosecutor Jean-Pierre Allachi
said.
A mother of three, Sebire
attracted a strong outpouring of sympathy when she appealed in a
television interview last month for the right to "depart
peacefully".
Before-and-after pictures of the
woman, her face severely deformed, have been featured in the press
along withd her account of frightened children who ran away at the
sight of her.
Sebire learnt in 2002 that she had
developed an esthesioneuroblastoma, an uncommon malignant tumour in
the nasal cavity, which she said had led to "atrocious"
suffering.
"In 2000, I lost the sense of
smell and taste... and I lost my sight in October 2007," she said
in the television interview.
"One would not allow an animal to
go through what I have endured," she said before urging President
Nicolas Sarkozy to intervene and grant her request.
Commenting on the case, Justice
Minister Rachida Dati said last week that "doctors were not there
to prescribe lethal drugs."
Legislation adopted in 2005 allows
families to request that life-support equipment for a
terminally-ill patient be switched off, but does not allow a doctor
to take action to end a patient's life.
Sarkozy asked his chief adviser on
health issues to contact Sebire and seek a second opinion on her
condition.
Sebire had said she would not
appeal the decision rendered Monday and that she would find
life-terminating drugs through other means.
"I now know how to get my hands on
what I need and if I don't get it in France, I will get it
elsewhere," she said.
Only 200 cases of the disease have
been recorded worldwide in two decades.
Sebire's death came on the same
day as 78-year-old Belgian author Hugo Claus's death by euthanasia
while suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Belgium, the Netherlands and
Luxembourg are the only European Unions that currently allow
euthanasia.
Taken from http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080320/tts-france-court-health-euthanasia-509a08e.html
