Court rejects petition for `right to die` law

The Constitutional Court dismissed a petition by a terminally ill woman`s family demanding the government enact a law to guarantee the right to end life support.

"A terminal patient is entitled to the constitutional right to cease meaningless life support, but this does not obligate the state to legislate such individual laws," the court said in the ruling.

The family of the 77-year-old comatose patient won a Supreme Court ruling in May that acknowledged her right not to undergo artificial life support.

They filed a separate petition in May 2008 claiming that the government infringed on her basic rights by neglecting introducing a law allowing the discontinuation of artificial life support.

All nine justices dismissed the claim.

The patient surnamed Kim fell into a coma in February 2008 after experiencing blood loss during a medical examination for lung cancer.

Kim was freed from her respirator in June and is still surviving on her own, despite doctors` expectations that she would die shortly after the removal.

Her family filed separate suits holding the Yonsei Severance Hospital responsible for letting her fall comatose due to medical negligence and for causing unnecessary damage by forcing the use of life support.

(tellme@heraldm.com)



By Bae Hyun-jung