Friends and relatives of a Frenchman with severe brain injuries published a video of him online on Wednesday as they campaign to stop doctors from withdrawing life support, reports The Guardian.
Vincent Lambert, 38, was left quadriplegic and in a condition of complete dependence following a road accident in 2008. On Friday the European court of human rights backed an earlier decision by a top French court that doctors could switch off his life support system.
The case has split the Lambert family in a drawn-out court battle over his fate.
The video uploaded to a conservative Christian website appears to show Lambert in his hospital bed responding to interactions with his family.
During the short video, Lambert’s eyes half open to his mother’s voice when a mobile phone is brought to his ear, and he also responds to contact with his half-brother.
But Lambert’s former doctor Eric Kariger said the responses did not prove he was reacting consciously.
“These patients in a vegetative state react to their environments but it is a vegetative response,” said Kariger.
“This video is an attack on his dignity and his right to privacy – it’s manipulative and plays on people’s emotions,” he added.
The video was filmed last Friday – the same day that the European court ruled that Lambert should be allowed to die.
That ruling backed a decision last year by the French court, based on the advice of three neuroscience experts, to withdraw intravenous food and water in line with a 2005 passive euthanasia law.
Lambert’s wife, doctors and six of his eight siblings – who argue he would not have wanted to be kept alive in such a state – have fought to have the life support measures withdrawn.
But Lambert’s parents, who are devout Catholics, along with two sisters and a half-brother, insist he is merely severely disabled but not “at the end of his life”.