Controversies surrounding continuous deep sedation at the end of life : the parliamentary and societal debates in France

Background: Continuous deep sedation at the end of life is a practice that has been the topic of considerable ethical debate, for example surrounding its perceived similarity or dissimilarity with physician-assisted dying. The practice is generally considered to be legal as a form of symptom control, although this is mostly only assumed. France has passed an amendment to the Public Health Act that would grant certain terminally ill patients an explicit right to continuous deep sedation until they pass away. Such a framework would be unique in the world. Discussion: In this paper we will highlight and reflect on four relevant aspects and shortcomings of the proposed bill. First, that the bill suggests that continuous deeps sedation should be considered as a sui generis practice. Second, that it requires that sedation should always be accompanied by the withholding of all artificial nutrition and hydration. In the most recently amended version of the legal proposal it is stated that life sustaining treatments are withheld unless the patient objects. Third, that the French bill would not require that the suffering for which continuous deep sedation is initiated is unbearable. Fourth, the question as to whether the proposal should be considered as a way to avoid having to decriminalise euthanasia and/or PAS or, on the contrary, as a veiled way to decriminalise these practices. Summary: The French proposal to amend the Public Health Act to include a right to continuous deep sedation for some patients is a unique opportunity to clarify the legality of continuous deep sedation as an end-of-life practice. Moreover, it would recognize that the practice of continuous deep sedation raises ethical and legal issues that are different from those raised by symptom control on the one hand and assisted dying on the other hand. Nevertheless, there are still various issues of significant ethical concern in the French legislative proposal

Johann Lambert's Scientific Tool Kit.: Exemplified by the Measurement of Humidity

International audienceJ.H. Lambert (1728-1777) developed a very detailed theory of science and experiment. Using Lambert's hygrometric studies, this article provides an introduction into Lambert's theory and its practice. Of special interest in Lambert's theory are a well-founded theory on the emergence and definition of concepts and his neat neat eye for heuristics that should ultimately lead up to a mathematization of physical phenomena. His use of visualizations in this context is especially remarkable

James Nayler and the Lamb\u27s War

James Nayler was perhaps the most articulate theologian and political spokesman of the earliest Quaker movement. He was part of a West Yorkshire group of radicals who added revolutionary impetus to George Fox\u27s apocalyptic preaching of Christ\u27s coming in the bodies of common men and women. With other Quaker leaders, Nayler insisted upon disestablishment of the Church, abolition of tithes, and disenfranchisement of the clergy, in order that Christ might rule in England, through human conscience. For early Friends, Christ\u27s sovereignty in the conscience was less a principle of individual freedom to dissociate religiously than a basis for collective practices of revolutionary worship, moral reform, social equality, and economic justice. All these were features of the nonviolent struggle Nayler called the \u27Lamb\u27s War\u27. His meteoric career is outlined in this study, a movement from apocalyptic prophet, to stigmatized Christ-figure, to withdrawn quietist

D. H. Lawrence's neglected art : his theory and practice of drama

Between 1908 and 1913 D. H. Lawrence wrote six plays: The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd, A Collier's Friday Night and The Daughter-In-Law, three naturalistic dramas; and The Merry-Go-Round, The Married Man, and The Fight For Barbara, three comedies of manners. After a lapse of several years, in 1918 Lawrence wrote Touch and Go, a political drama of ideas followed after another interval by David (1925), also a play of ideas using a Biblical framework. Largely neglected until recently, Lawrence's drama spans his writing career and reflects what he was doing in his other work. Although publication of The Complete Plays in 1966, the Peter Gill production in London of Lawrence's three naturalistic dramas in 1968, and the American production of The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd in 1973 resulted in an increased interest in Lawrence's playwriting, only three full-length studies of Lawrence's drama have appeared. Devoted primarily to either the biographical material in his drama or to the ideological similarities between Lawrence's drama and his work in other genres, none of the three studies examines the plays from the point of view of Lawrence's ideas about the distinction between drama and fiction

Photometric measurements of surface characteristics of echo i satellite final report

Photometric measurements of Echo I satellite surface characteristic