Right-to-Die Ruling Stayed Pending Appeal
A judge on Saturday granted a Christian group’s request and ordered that a severely brain-damaged woman be fed again while his earlier ruling affirming her right to die is appealed.
The parents of Sue Ann Lawrance removed her feeding tubes on May 3 after gaining permission from Superior Court Judge Jerry M. Barr. Doctors had expected the 42-year-old woman to die within a few days.
In a meeting Saturday in Barr’s chambers, the woman’s family and a right-to-life attorney agreed to resume feeding the woman for 21 days while the judge’s ruling is appealed.
Patti Mullins, a lawyer for the Christian Fellowship for the Disabled, is expected to file an appeal on Monday.
Lawrance has suffered progressively debilitating brain disorders since childhood and lapsed into a persistent vegetative state after a fall in 1987. She is not medically “brain dead,” doctors say, but there is no chance that she will recover.
Lawrance’s father, William, told the court Friday that his daughter’s medical care was “not prolonging her life but rather prolonging her death.”
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