"Right to die" death reopens French suicide debate

By Tom Heneghan

PARIS (Reuters) - A French "right to die" advocate refused permission for an assisted suicide has been found dead in the latest twist to a drama that has reopened a euthanasia debate the country thought it had concluded three years ago.

Officials gave no details on Thursday about how Chantal Sebire, 52, died late on Wednesday. She suffered from a rare and painful sinus tumor that robbed her of taste, smell and sight and made her eye sockets bulge out many times their normal size.

On Monday, a court in Dijon refused her request for medical help to die because that would breach medical ethics and an end-of-life law passed in 2005 that allows "passive euthanasia" but bars assisted suicide.

Government spokesman Luc Chatel said Jean Leonetti, the deputy from President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party who wrote that law, would review it in the next few weeks to see "if there is now the will to go further than the law of 2005".

The Sebire case, heavily covered by French media in recent weeks, has prompted calls for a new law allowing for exceptions to the assisted suicide ban in extreme cases. But just as many politicians warned that legalized euthanasia could be misused.

"We will have to act quickly, because exceptional cases like that of Chantal Sebire are occurring regularly," Chatel said.

The euthanasia debate also occurs regularly in France, where polls show many sympathize with suffering patients seeking a painless death but balk at legalizing active euthanasia.

POLITICIANS SPLIT ON WHAT TO DO