Photo of a stethoscope, gavel, and book

The End of Dramatic Legal Saga: French Patient Vincent Lambert has Died

By Audrey Lebret

There are few cases as publicized in France as the story of Vincent Lambert, a patient in a vegetative state whose fate deeply divided his family. On June 28, 2019, the Cour de Cassation signed the last substantial decision of the Vincent Lambert case, after six years of proceedings. The patient died on July 11, 2019.

The facts

In 2008, Vincent Lambert was involved in a traffic accident that left him in a quadriplegic state and suffering from massive brain trauma. In 2011, a medical evaluation described his state as minimally conscious. Doctors tried to establish a code of communication to which he was never responsive. Nonetheless, doctors tracked some behaviors that they interpreted as an opposition to treatments and a refusal to live (Conseil d’Etat judgement, at 20). In 2013, his doctor initiated a procedure with the agreement of Mr. Lambert’s wife in order to interrupt the treatments. That initiated a lengthy court battle.

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California the latest to pass a Death with Dignity law, 5th in US

Medical personnel are trained to “first do no harm.” In end-of-life treatment, that simple directive can be difficult to interpret, and the legal landscape has evolved in the United States over the past 25 years. In 1990, the US Supreme Court ruled that physicians and other health care providers could withhold medical treatment at the direction of a patient or the patient’s directed agent.

Most recently, a movement to provide patients’ help in dying has been termed “death with dignity” and “assisted suicide.” Federal law does not currently address euthanasia or “mercy killings” in terminal patients who seek a physician’s aid to end their own suffering. Rather, the patient’s right to obtain a physician’s or other health care provider’s help to end their life is established by state law. Read More