Right-to-die case: Doctors end life support for French patient

STRASBOURGH: Doctors stopped giving food and water to French quadriplegic Vincent Lambert on Monday, lawyers said, renewing a fierce debate over the right to die that has split his family and country.
The 42-year-old former psychiatric nurse has been in a vegetative state since a motorcycle accident in 2008. He has almost no consciousness but can breath without a respirator and occasionally moves his eyes. His wife Rachel and some of his siblings say care should be withdrawn. But Lambert’s Catholic parents say he should be kept alive.
His doctors in the city of Riems said earlier this month that they would start withdrawing care after all legal avenues had been exhausted. The medical team had now stopped feeding him food and water through a gastric tube and were administering sedatives. Lambert’s parents issued a last-ditch legal bid at the European Court of Human Rights on Monday. But the Strasbourg-based tribunal said there was no violation of his right to life and referred to a judgement it had made in 2015 allowing doctors to take him off life support.