French Courts Rule That a Brain Damaged Man Should Be Taken Off Life Support and Allowed to Die, But EU Commission Overrules Them

Many might be pleased with that temporary result -- the EU could take years deciding what France is allowed to do.

But consider how absurd this state of affairs is -- the highest court in your country issues a ruling, and then a conclave of dickless bureaurcrats in Brussels tells you "No, we want to noodle about this for a few years."

I mean, fine as far as this particular ruling -- but this happens every single day in every single matter, from scallop-farming to licensing manicurists to the proper labeling of cheese to whether you're permitted to sell beer in a pint-sized glass.

CNN:

Hours after they began the process of allowing him to die, French doctors were ordered to restore the life support of a man in a vegetative state whose controversial case has divided his family and the public.

Vincent Lambert, 42, sustained severe brain damage in a car accident in 2008 and has been on life support at Sebastopol Hospital in Reims, northeast France, where medical experts have determined that his situation is irreversible.

But for more than five years, legal battles have raged between his family members over whether he should be kept alive, igniting a watershed debate in the country and drawing in international bodies, the French President and even the Pope. On Monday, that fight appeared to have finally reached its end, with a judicial ruling that allowed doctors to take Lambert off life support.

That decision, in line with the wishes of his wife and siblings, followed a similar conclusion from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. It prompted doctors to begin the process of "passive" euthanasia, which is legal in France.

But a last-ditch effort from Lambert's devout Catholic parents, who have been campaigning to keep him alive, halted the move hours later. An appeals court ruled in their favor, concluding that support cannot be withdrawn until an ongoing report by the UN's Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is completed.
red there was a plan to kidnap him.

Note the subtle bias there. The parents argue in favor of his life because they are "devout Catholics." But that implies his wife and siblings are less devout -- perhaps secular. Why not report, "The man's more secular wife and siblings believe he should be permitted to die"?

See, by noting his parents are "devout Catholics," you imply that they have ideological priors that are complicating or biasing their decision in this matter. By not similarly labeling the wife and siblings, you are suggesting that they are free of that bias.

But secularism/materialism/atheism are their own biases, too.

Oddly enough, the secularist, materialist, atheist press doesn't see it that way! They see their own biases as non-biases -- just common sense, you know?

posted by Ace of Spades at 12:00 PM

| Access Comments