NATION : 3rd Court Upholds Right to Die
MT. VERNON, Mo. — A federal judge refused today to order state health officials to resume feeding Nancy Cruzan, a week after nourishment was halted to the woman who’s in a vegetative state.
Earlier today, the Missouri Supreme Court and a Cole County court turned down two separate, similar requests.
U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple in Kansas City, who issued the ruling, scolded protesters for going from court to court seeking such an action.
“This court is mindful of the fact that this is the fifth petition of its kind filed this week in various Missouri courts,” he said. The four previous petitions all have been denied.
The 33-year-old Cruzan, the central figure in the first right-to-die case considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, has been in a persistent vegetative state since suffering massive brain damage in a 1983 traffic accident.
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