Purple Kangaroo has put me onto the sad case of Maria Korp. The fifty year old Australian woman was found unconscious on February 13 and has been in a coma ever since. Her husband and his lover are alleged to have attempted to murder her.
Today, May 13, Mrs. Korp could be taken off life-support. That's contingent on a Melbourne judge ruling that her status of being in a persistent vegetative state has changed to a permanent state. The court-appointed guardian could then decide to end life support.
Ironically, Mrs. Korp's alleged killers may hope that decision won't be made and that she will not die. Should she die under those circumstances, prosecutors have indicated that they would change the charge of attempted murder to murder.
Purple Kangaroo cites medical protocols indicating that for the court to change Mrs. Korp's status, just three months after she was found, would be premature.
Prayers for Maria Korp and for those charged with making decisions in this matter would be good to offer right now.
UPDATE: Purple Kangaroo has posted information on the difficulty and subjectivity involved in diagnosing someone as having entered a permanent vegetative state (PVS). It's here.
PK has also sent a link my way with background information and a plethora of links dealing with the entire subject. It's here.
I hope that readers find these links informative and will use them as incentive for further exploration of the subjects raised.
1 comment:
Thanks for helping to bring attention to this issue. You might be interested in this post I just finished writing, discussing a little more in-depth some of the evidence suggesting a good chance of recovery from PVS even after 3 months or more.
If you're interested in learning more about PVS, brain damage and states of consciousness, I also have a lot of older posts about these issues--including the the difficulty and subjectivity of making a PVS diagnosis in the first place, many of which are linked to at the bottom of this post.
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