Un film à ne surtout pas rater Black Bird !
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Speech of Jean-Luc Romero
Dignity in Dying – London – May 21st
Dear friends,
I am delighted to be at DID’s Annual Meeting today. Thank you for inviting me here to speak.
As was said, I am the president of ADMD-France (Right to die in Dignity – France). ADMD-France was founded in 1980 to get a law of Ultimate Liberty.
Our target : to gain a law in France which will permit the universal access to palliative care and, at the same time, which will legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Now, ADMD-France has more than 50.000 members. I am pleased to say that over 90% of French Citizens are in favor of the law that we want, particularly the young generation and I am happy to be accompanied by the assistant General Secretary of ADMD, Christophe Michel, who is also responsible for the youth commission and the youngest board member, which our society has ever had. He is 26 years old.
I have divided my short presentation into three main parts.
Firstly, a few words about the current French law concerning the End of the Life.
Secondly, the campaigns we have done in France to get the support of the politicians and the reaction from our opponents.
Finally, I’ll tell you what I think - I hope! - will happen in France this autumn.
My presence here, as with Rowena Ironside during our Paris meeting at the Hotel de Ville in January 2013, shows the similarity of our societies and how identical our struggle is.
It is a struggle for human rights, for equality in facing Death, for compassion.
We have a lot to learn from each other. Your sense of organization and your legendary discipline, our frenzy and our near permanent rebellion. Our main difference is that our king has been beheaded and that your queen wears many hats.
Allow me now, after this short introduction, to look at my first point and describe the situation in our country.
Avec Jacqueline Jencquel, secrétaire générale de l’ADMD, je représenterai l’ ADMD-France au congrès de l’association sœur de Grande-Bretagne « Dignity in Dying » ce lundi 3 septembre. Malheureusement, je ne pourrai rester que le matin mais Jacqueline y restera toute la journée.
Cette association sœur est engagée, comme l’ADMD en France, dans un lobbying pour obtenir une loi et ce sera pour nous l’occasion de comparer nos méthodes de travail pour persuader les élus de nous octroyer enfin notre Ultime Liberté.
A noter que grâce à l’action de cette association, le 27 mars dernier, les députés de la Chambre des Communes ont suivi la préconisation du directeur des poursuites publiques qui a décidé d’arrêter d’incriminer pénalement les personnes qui aideraient par compassion un malade qui décide d’arrêter son chemin de vie.
1/ Apart from the fact that I am an elected representative of the Ile-de-France region, I am also president of « Elus Locaux Contre le Sida » (local elected representatives against Aids) which is a society of more than 14.000 French elected representatives-and I am also member of the National Council of Aids, which is a French organization made up of personalities from all kinds of groups (medical, charitable, religious) This organization offers different roads of action to the French public authorities. Another one of my battles, which is very dear to me, is the one in favour of euthanasia. I’m the president of ADMD (Association Pour le Droit de Mourir dans la Dignité) which is a Right-to-Die Society with nearly 50.000 members in France. It is indeed absolutely essential in my opinion that every single person should be able to decide for him/her self how he/she would like to end his/her life in the most dignified way possible. Do not hesitate in to look up the website : www.admd.net for more information.
2/ In the battles I fight, I often come up against personal interests, prejudices, conservative and even fundamentalist ideologies. When one knows that 5000 people die a day because of Aids, I can not let the problem be played down or be told, „it is not my problem“. That is why I have been fighting for nearly 15 years because I think that even if this disease remains deadly, Aids can still be better tackled by politics.
3/ The international community understood how high the stakes were in the fight against Aids. But understanding the stakes does not mean act accordingly. Let us be clear: today: the fight against HIV/ Aids is cruelly suffering from shortage of money! And because of this lack of money many millions of people die every year although their deaths could easily have been avoided! I have a concrete fear: that the economic crisis should have as a consequence the stagnation of the funds granted for the fight against the HIV/ Aids virus or, even worse, a diminishing of these funds. It would be a very serious and dramatic decision because the fight against HIV/Aids requires a massive commitment from every single country in the world. But when I see the enormous amounts of money released and given to the banks to face the crisis, I say to myself that money can be found, it is just a matter of political will.
4/ If you don’ t mind, I will not come out with all the numbers because you can find them on the following link of UNAIDS: http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/bulgaria-2008-country-progress-report-en-pdf
I would just like to attract your attention on a population which is increasingly vulnerable in Bulgaria: the drug-users (those who use syringes). Globally in Eastern Europe, there is an explosion of new cases amongst that population. I think it is necessary to watch what is going on and to install a policy of risk reduction ( exchanging the syringes etc). This is a policy which has been very successful in France on the level of public health.
5/ The public authorities should stop having an ideological speech about Aids. They should become conscious of the fact that an efficient policy against Hiv/Aids should be pragmatic because Aids touches every category of population. Ideological speeches and great sermons are not efficient for health and social problems.In my opinion it is just turning away from facts : to solve a problem, you must accept to see it as it is !
6/ First of all thank you for having invited me on your blog and all the best to you ! The message I would like to give your readers is an information about Bulgaria: do you know that your country denies Hiv infected people the possibility to spend some time there ? If I , who have been Hiv/ infected for the past 20 years, would like to spend a few months in your country, I am not allowed to do so! And only because of my serological condition. Yet we all know that Aids is not a contagious disease! Please join us in our fight against these terrible discriminations on : www.aids-sida-discriminations.fr or www.elcs.fr
Vous pouvez entendre en podcast et en espagnol un long reportage de RFI sur l’euthanasie qui est passé le 10 juillet dernier. Un long reportage où est évoquée la situation en France et en Europe sur la fin de vie.
Vous pouvez m’y entendre en … espagnol répondre aux questions du journaliste. Ayez un peu d’indulgence pour mon accent… même si je suis un fils d’immigrés espagnols...
Pour écouter cette émission et si bien sûr vous parlez espagnol, cliquez ici.
Je suis heureux de vous présenter le logo du congrès mondial des ADMD qui se déroulera à Paris du 30 octobre au 2 novembre 2008. A cette occasion, et comme je l’avais proposé au Board mondial de la World federation of right to die societies, nous lancerons à Paris la 1ère journée internationale pour le droit de mourir dans la dignité.
J’aurai bientôt l’occasion de vous parler plus longuement de cette grande manifestation.