Court grants right to die for first time in S. Korea to comatose woman

(ATTN: MODIFIES headline, UPDATES throughout)
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
acknowledged an individual's right to die.

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.
"The patient is in a hopeless state with no chance of recovery," Judge Kim
Cheon-su said in the verdict.
"Considering the 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," the judge said.
Kim's children had sought court approval for her euthanasia after she sustained
cerebral damage and fell into a comatose state while receiving a lung examination
in February.
The court noted, however, that the verdict is not an approval of euthanasia for
general patients but is limited to only those for whom medical treatment has no
impact and who are presumed to want to stop treatment.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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