Court rejects appeals in euthanasia plea

Seoul: South Korea's highest court ordered a hospital to heed a family's request to suspend life support for a 76-year-old woman in a coma, a landmark ruling that heralded a shift in attitudes towards death.

Societal mores an laws in the country have largely been shaped by Confucian ideals that call for preserving and honouring the body. As recently as 2004, two doctors who took a severely brain-damaged patient off life support were convicted of "abetting murder".

But public sentiment has shifted in recent years. A 2008 survey indicated a majority of South Koreans favour stopping life support for the terminally ill.

In February, a group of lawmakers proposed a 'right to die with dignity' Bill, but parliament has yet to vote on it for fear of a backlash from sizeable Christian and Buddhist communities.

The 76-year-old patient at the heart of Thursday's Supreme Court ruling has been in a vegetative state since suffering brain damage in February 2008. Her family asked doctors at Yonsei University's Severance Hospital to remove her from life support. The hospital refused, citing a law that forbids physicians from taking patients off respirators or life support. The children of the woman, identified only by the surname Kim, sued the hospital for the right to remove her from life support.

In November, a Seoul District Court sided with the family and ordered the patient's respirator removed. Severance Hospital appealed the ruling, but an appellate court upheld the verdict in February. On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld both rulings and ordered the hospital to remove the woman from life support, Chief Justice Lee Yong-hun said, calling the family's request 'just'.