Supreme Court Chief Justice Lee Yonghoon reads a statement at the Supreme Court’s grand courtroom in Seoul, Thursday, upholding a ruling allowing a family to remove life-support equipment from a comatose patient. The ruling is expected to provide fresh momentum in legalizing “death with dignity.” / Yonhap |
Supreme Court Upholds Landmark Ruling on Death With Dignity
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
The Supreme Court upheld a landmark ruling Thursday, allowing a family to remove life-support equipment from a comatose patient with no chance of recovery.
The ruling is the first of its kind by the top court, making it necessary for legislators to address ``death with dignity'' ㅡ a physician-assisted death with certain restrictions, or passive euthanasia ㅡ to prevent similar cases in the future.
Chief Justice Lee Yong-hoon said in the ruling, ``Whether or not to stop life-support treatment should be carefully decided upon. Given the overall evidence and health condition, the patient Kim Ok-kyung would die following the cessation of treatment, which means she is to all intents and purposes already dead.''
Lee added, ``In this condition, extending her life is meaningless and against her right to die with dignity.''
The justice said the verdict respected her wish and her ``right to pursue happiness,'' protected under the Constitution.
``Before falling into coma, she said that she would not want to be kept alive by machines, if there was no chance of recovery. Given this, we believe she would also want the treatment to be stopped,'' Lee said.
Following the ruling, Kim's family asked that she be immediately removed from life support, saying ``She has suffered from meaningless treatment.''
The hospital said discussions with her family, doctors, and other experts will determine how to proceed.
Kim, 77, lapsed into coma in February last year after excessive bleeding caused by a botched endoscopy operation.
She has been hospitalized in the Severance Hospital in northern Seoul with a feeding tube and other life support systems attached to her. She has been in a persistent vegetative stage since then.
When The Korea Times visited her in last October, Kim sometimes moved her eyes and toes and even squirmed and wiggled. But doctors confirmed they were not signs of recovery.
Lawyer Shin Hyun-ho, who is representing the patient and her family, said ``The pupils of her eyes do not react to light at all, meaning she is almost the same as other brain dead people.''
In the first ruling last November, the Seoul Western District Court ordered the removal of feeding and ventilating tubes from the patient, accepting her children's claim that their mother had always opposed keeping people alive on machines when there was no chance of recovery.
An appellate court also upheld the previous decision, setting unprecedented guidelines for death with dignity.
The guidelines said that death with dignity could be allowed ``when the patient was in a terminally ill phase in which no medical treatment was feasible; when maintaining life was nothing but a death-like situation for the patient; when the patient has talked about such methods at length with consistency and sanity; and when doctors are involved in the decision making.''
Days before the ruling, Seoul National University Hospital announced it would let terminal cancer patients or their family members decide whether to stay on life support or not.
This was the first time a hospital here has formulated such guidelines on the ``right to die'' issue.
Following the ruling, the families of two other comatose patients applied for the right to remove them from life support equipment.
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