Cancer Sufferer Who Begged for Death Found Dead

Active euthanasia, the act of taking steps to facilitate a person's death, is illegal in France.

In a request she filed in court in the eastern city of Dijon, Sébire cited "intense and permanent suffering" and the "incurable character of the disease she is suffering from," as reasons for "her refusal to have to support the irreversible degradation of her state."

But the court ruled that Sébire could not have a doctor help her die because it would breach medical ethics and French law, under which assisted suicide is a crime.

Sébire's lawyer Gilles Antonowicz denounced the decision as "total hypocrisy" and called on Sarkozy to change the law.

"Our law is inhuman. The law must be changed because we see that people are left on the side of the road," Antonowicz said at a news conference Monday in Paris. Following the court's decision, he spoke briefly with his client, who, he said, was "extremely tired."

Of Death and Dignity

Sébire's case received widespread news coverage and renewed the euthanasia debate in France.

Many think the 2005 law is insufficient. Last year, more that 2,000 doctors and nurses signed a petition saying they had helped patients to die with dignity, asserting that the law "is still repressive and unfair as ever as it is not in sync with medical reality."

Active euthanasia is decriminalized in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. There have been several cases of active euthanasia involving foreign nationals in these countries over the years.

"This court decision inflicts on Chantal Sébire a sentence of suffering for life," Jean-Luc Romero, president of the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity, an organization that regroups 40,000 people in France, told ABC News on Monday.

But several government members reacted over this case. Prime Minister François Fillon told RTL radio last week that "the difficulty for me in this case is that we are at the limit of what society can say, of what the law can do. I think one must have the modesty to recognize that society cannot answer all these questions."