Sydney, May 29: An Australian court today ruled it was legal for doctors to stop tube feeding an elderly woman who has been unconscious for three years but expressed her desire to die when she was still competent. Right to life groups claimed the landmark ruling by the Victorian Supreme Court would lead to the deaths of vulnerable people who were not imminently dying, while medical experts welcomed it as clarification of a legal grey area.

The court made its ruling in the case of a 68-year-old woman who has been unconscious in a nursing home for three years.

The woman, known only as BWV, is suffering from a rare form of dementia called Pick's Disease and has been kept alive by being fed through a stomach tube.

Bureau Report