catapult magazine

Son’s Wish to Die, and Mother’s Help, Stir French Debate
By CRAIG S. SMITH

New York Times Published: September 27, 2003

PARIS, Sept. 26 ? “I Ask the Right to Die,” written by Vincent Humbert, a 22-year-old French paraplegic, hit bookstores here on Thursday. Today he died, two days after his mother put an overdose of sedatives into his intravenous line.

She acted on the third anniversary of the car accident that left him paralyzed, mute and blind.

His death and his book calling for the legalization of euthanasia have transfixed the nation and drawn the debate over assisted suicide out of hospital wards and into people’s homes.

Assisted suicide is outlawed in France but is permitted under certain circumstances in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is fully legal in Switzerland, where there are associations that help terminally ill patients kill themselves.

Radio call-in programs, television talk shows and the opinion pages of the country’s newspapers have swelled with discussion of Mr. Humbert’s death and what punishment, if any, his mother, Marie Humbert, should receive.

Ms. Humbert, 48, who had campaigned for the right to end her son’s life, was taken into custody by the police on suspicion of attempted murder late Wednesday but was released on Thursday and allowed to see her son before he died. She was subsequently hospitalized at an undisclosed location. Her current whereabouts is unknown.

Lib?ration, the country’s largest left-wing daily, praised Ms. Humbert in an editorial headlined, “Let us end this hypocrisy.” An editorial in Le Monde, France’s leading newspaper, called only for a national debate but pointed out that the country’s national ethics consulting committee recommended in January 2000 that a law be passed legalizing euthanasia in exceptional cases.

So far, the country’s judicial system is dealing gently with Ms. Humbert, who won enormous public sympathy in her campaign for euthanasia.

Justice Minister Dominique Perben asked prosecutors in a statement today “to act with the greatest humanity in applying the law, taking into account the suffering of the mother and the young man.” The lead prosecutor in the case told reporters that an official inquiry into Mr. Humbert’s death would be undertaken “in due time.”

Mr. Humbert’s plight captured national attention last December after he wrote a direct appeal to France’s president, Jacques Chirac, asking for the legal right to end his own life. Mr. Chirac wrote back that he could not grant the request “because the president of the republic doesn’t have that right, but I understand your helplessness and deep despair in facing the living conditions that you endure.”

Mr. Humbert then set about writing his book from his bed at the same hospital in the northern port of Berck-sur-Mer where Jean-Dominique Bauby, all but incapacitated by a stroke, wrote his haunting memoir, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” Mr. Bauby died in 1997, two days after his book was published.

Mr. Humbert wrote his book with the help of a journalist, Fr?d?ric Veille, by pressing with his thumb and nodding his head to spell out words as Mr. Veille read repeatedly through the alphabet.

In “I Ask the Right to Die,” Mr. Humbert recounts with heartbreaking bitterness how his life as a healthy, careful young fireman ended when his car met an oncoming truck on a narrow country road. After enduring months of ebbing hope that he would recover any of his lost faculties ? he even lost his senses of taste and smell ? he decided he wanted to die and with his mother began the campaign.

Mr. Humbert had argued to be allowed to end his life legally in France because he was unable to afford the cost of transport abroad, even if it could have been arranged.

“Then, so that you understand me better, so that the debate about euthanasia finally reaches another level, so that this word and this act are no longer a taboo subject, so that we no longer let live lucid people like me who want to put an end to their own suffering, I wanted to write this book that I will never read,” he wrote.

In the book, which was the second-best-selling title on France’s Amazon.com Web site this morning, Mr. Humbert described asking his mother to kill him and her decision to do so. As the third anniversary of his Sept. 24 accident approached, his mother signaled her intention to kill her son in media interviews.

Ms. Humbert injected sedatives into her son’s intravenous drip late Wednesday, sending him into a coma. The family then pleaded with doctors to let him die. Mr. Humbert died today after doctors abandoned efforts to keep him alive, saying in a statement that they had made their “collective and difficult decision in complete independence.”

Mr. Humbert’s book ends with a plea to readers to empathize with his mother and leave her in peace. “What she has done for me is surely the most beautiful proof of love in the world,” he wrote.

Related to this topic, a band called “Hell on Earth”wants to grant a fan his own suicide live on stage during a show in St. Petersburg, FL. The police are trying to figure out what kind of charges to bring against people if it goes through.

Well, euthanasia is suicide and suicide is illegal in some states. Is Florida one of them? If so, the band members would be charged as being parties to a crime, that crime being suicide.

There is nothing left to parody in this society. All absurdity already is happening out there somewhere.

I agree that the flippancy of a suicide on-stage is nothing short of grotesque and devastating.

But is it wrong to feel a sympathy and understanding for Mr. Vincent Humbert? 50 years ago, he surely would not have survived and lived. Does technology dictate morality?

Those few who attempted suicide in New France (Quebec a while back) were punished by public flogging and banishment from the colony. Successful suicide called for the death penalty. Seriously. A mock execution was carried out on the dead body. But we’re kind of off the topic of euthanasia here. Assisted suicide is a completely different story than suicide, isn’t it?

I don’t think assisted suicide and suicide are very different, with the exception of an extra word. The person who wants to kill themselves would do it unassisted if they were physically able to go about it. What’s the difference between asking someone to be party to a suicide (a crime in many states) and asking someone to help you rob a bank … just because you’re blind and mute and can’t do it yourself?

As for technology keeping people alive longer than they would live without the technology, well, our society has developed a legal means to avoid being kept alive on machines, etc. It’s called a living will.

If we are to believe Bono, and I think we should, most suicides happen when people are ‘stuck in a moment’ — a short period of time when they are willing to jump out the window because they can’t see anything else beyond the shit they’re in right at that moment.

When suicidal people tell their friends, “Hey guys I wanna kill myself” their friends don’t say, “need help with the knot in that rope?” They’re going to try to help him get out of his funk so he won’t want to kill himself anymore—or at least keep him from jumping out the window while they’re around.

Assisted suicide seems to me to be a whole different matter. When the people who love you most are willing to help you commit suicide, it seems to indicate that this is not just a depressed kid who needs prozac.

mrsanniep, In FL it is not illegal to commit suicide, but it is illegal to assist in the suicide of a person. FL (ST. Petes) government have shut down the show that Hell On Earth was promoting, but that has not stopped the three ring circus. According to the news today, the band is holding the concert at an “undisclosed” venue with only a few people in attendance. The show will be broadcast live on their website. The man committing suicide is terminally ill and is not asking for assistance with his death…only an audience.

Here is link to Fox news coverage: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,98667,00.html

It’s been postponed, in case any of you were planning to watch.

http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-10-05-0042.html

Gosh darn it … and it’s too late to cancel the caterers.