A Case For Euthanasia

Chantal Sebire knows she's forcing people to make an agonizing decision, but agony is something she knows far too much about. The 52- year-old Dijon schoolteacher suffers from a rare disease that has left her disfigured by facial tumors, which will also damage her brain over time and eventually kill her. Her demand that French political leaders loosen laws against euthanasia has been rebuffed, so Sebire now awaits a judge's decision on whether existing legislation allows doctors to assist her in ending her pain-racked life. "I no longer accept this enduring pain, and this protruding eye that nothing can be done about," Sebire told RTL radio, referring to ravages the tumors are causing her. "I want to go out celebrating, surrounded by my children, friends, and doctors before I'm put to sleep definitively at dawn."