Judge Orders Move of Bouvia to L.A. County Hosptial

A judge today ordered that quadriplegic Elizabeth Bouvia, whose desire to starve made her a symbol of the right-to-die movement, be transferred back to a hospital where she is more likely to receive pain-killing morphine.

Superior Court Judge Jack Newman said Bouvia, 29, has the right to reject the desires of doctors at High Desert Hospital in Lancaster, where she is a patient. Doctors there want to stop the morphine that eases her intense muscle spasms.

“Mrs. Bouvia does have the right to refuse the course of medical treatment offered to her at High Desert Hospital,” Newman said in ordering her taken back to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where she was a patient before being transferred in December to High Desert.

Newman ordered that Bouvia’s morphine be continued until her transfer, but did not order that doctors at County-USC continue the morphine infusion once she is a patient there.