Controversy in France: Vincent Lambert's end-of-life protocol, symbol of "dignified death" was initiated

The interruption of medical care to Vincent Lambert, the French in a vegetative state become a symbol of the debate on euthanasia, kicked off Monday after a six-year court battle.

The case of Vincent Lambert divided his own family and sparked a heated debate in France on dignified death. His parents and one sister feel that Vincent is disabled and that cutting his diet and that hydration is a form of euthanasia, which is banned in France.

On the contrary, his wife and five of his brothers denounce therapeutic cruelty because of his vegetative state and brain damage deemed irreversible, following a car accident suffered in 2008, when he had 32 years.

The Lambert's parents, fervent Catholics, have vigorously opposed the end of their son's life and they have systematically resorted to court decisions to stop medical care. Saturday, They sent a letter to President Emmanuel Macron by asking him to intervene to keep his son alive.

The doctors finally decided to suspend this care from Monday, after one last decision of the French State Council.

The Lambert's wife, Rachel, five of his brothers and a nephew supported justice decisions to stop careand denounce therapeutic cruelty. According to them, he would not have wanted to stay alive through machines, but he left no written slogan.

"It's a shame, an absolute scandal, they could not even kiss their son," said Jean Paillot, a lawyer of Vincent Lambert's parents, in a statement to the press. AFP, after announcing the interruption of medical care. "They are monsters! Monsters!"Viviane Lambert, Vincent's mother, cried on Monday, pbading the hospital in Reims (north-east) where she is hospitalized.

Validated by the State Council in April, the interruption of medical care provides that the machines that hydrate and nourish it will be extinguished. As well will be sedated "in a deep and continuous way until his death" and administer painkillers as a precaution.

It is Dr. Vincent Sanchez, head of the unit in which Lambert has been hospitalized for several years, who announced this Monday by email the beginning of the end-of-life protocol.

The doctor had already announced on the 11th that he would begin to apply it this week and that it could last several days.

The lawyers of Lambert's parents, who do not give up, announced Sunday that they would present three new appeals – before the State Council, the European Court of Human Rights and the Court call from Paris – to end the interruption of care. They also demand that Dr. Sanchez be excluded from the medical order and threaten to sue him.

The parents' lawyers also referred the case to a United Nations body, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CDPD), which asked France not to suspend its attention until the background of the case be examined. But the state "is not obliged" to respect this requestSaid the Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn.

(With information from AFP)