ID :
32826
Fri, 11/28/2008 - 19:12
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/32826
The shortlink copeid
Court approves mercy killing for first time in S. Korea
SEOUL, Nov. 28 (Yonhap) -- A court accepted a family's request on Friday to stop treatment for a woman lying in a vegetative state in an unprecedented ruling that approved mercy killing in South Korea without the patient's consent.
The Seoul Western District Court ordered feeding and ventilator tubes be removed
from the 75-year-old woman, identified only by her surname Kim, saying she has no
chance of recovery and her desire to stop treatment can be inferred.
"Considering her hopeless state, the expected years left in her life and her
current age, it is assumed that Ms. Kim would have expressed her intent to die a
natural death with the ventilator removed rather than remain in her current
condition," Judge Kim Cheon-su said in the verdict.
The decision answered to a long-debated question here of whether authorities can
infringe upon the right to live of the terminally ill when their family demands
it.
In 1997, a court convicted a family of murder and a hospital of assisting the
crime for removing a ventilator from a comatose patient. Physicians have since
shunned the practice while practical reasons for assisted death were raised by
patients' families.
Friday's ruling not only approved the mercy killing for the first time but also
did so without the patient's consent.
Mercy killings, also called "death with dignity," are permitted in some countries
like Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Thailand and the U.S.
states of Oregon and Washington, but many of them require a condition that the
patient had given a consent.
In Kim's case, she did not leave a word on ending her life. Considering medical
opinion that her chance of survival was nil and the family's testimony that she
wouldn't have liked to be a burden to her children, the court inferred her
presumed intent to die.
Shin Hyun-ho, representing the family, said in a hearing, "No law has been
legislated about mercy killing, and there's no regulation in the public health
insurance law to prevent pointless life-extending treatment. Such circumstances
are a violation of one's constitutional right to happiness and right to
self-determination as a patient."
Kim's children had sought court approval for her physician-assisted death after
she sustained cerebral damage and fell into a coma while receiving a lung
examination in February.
The hospital refused the family's demand to end her life. The children filed a
constitutional appeal and a civil suit against the hospital in June.
The Constitutional Court has not yet made a decision.
The district court warned of possible abuse of mercy killing that its verdict may
be considered to be condoning. The approval does not amount to general cases but
only to those for whom medical treatment has no impact and who are presumed to
want to stop treatment, it said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
The Seoul Western District Court ordered feeding and ventilator tubes be removed
from the 75-year-old woman, identified only by her surname Kim, saying she has no
chance of recovery and her desire to stop treatment can be inferred.
"Considering her hopeless state, the expected years left in her life and her
current age, it is assumed that Ms. Kim would have expressed her intent to die a
natural death with the ventilator removed rather than remain in her current
condition," Judge Kim Cheon-su said in the verdict.
The decision answered to a long-debated question here of whether authorities can
infringe upon the right to live of the terminally ill when their family demands
it.
In 1997, a court convicted a family of murder and a hospital of assisting the
crime for removing a ventilator from a comatose patient. Physicians have since
shunned the practice while practical reasons for assisted death were raised by
patients' families.
Friday's ruling not only approved the mercy killing for the first time but also
did so without the patient's consent.
Mercy killings, also called "death with dignity," are permitted in some countries
like Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Thailand and the U.S.
states of Oregon and Washington, but many of them require a condition that the
patient had given a consent.
In Kim's case, she did not leave a word on ending her life. Considering medical
opinion that her chance of survival was nil and the family's testimony that she
wouldn't have liked to be a burden to her children, the court inferred her
presumed intent to die.
Shin Hyun-ho, representing the family, said in a hearing, "No law has been
legislated about mercy killing, and there's no regulation in the public health
insurance law to prevent pointless life-extending treatment. Such circumstances
are a violation of one's constitutional right to happiness and right to
self-determination as a patient."
Kim's children had sought court approval for her physician-assisted death after
she sustained cerebral damage and fell into a coma while receiving a lung
examination in February.
The hospital refused the family's demand to end her life. The children filed a
constitutional appeal and a civil suit against the hospital in June.
The Constitutional Court has not yet made a decision.
The district court warned of possible abuse of mercy killing that its verdict may
be considered to be condoning. The approval does not amount to general cases but
only to those for whom medical treatment has no impact and who are presumed to
want to stop treatment, it said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
