A New Jersey woman, suffering from anorexia and bulimia, died this week, just months after a judge ruled that she couldn’t be fed against her will, officials said Wednesday.
The woman — only listed as “Ashley G” in court papers — died at Morristown Medical Center on Monday, succumbing to eating disorders which she had fought since her teens, her lawyer and another source close to the family said.
“I’m thankful that she’s at peace,” Ashley G’s court-appointed lawyer Edward G. D’Alessandro Jr. told The Post.
“It’s incredibly tragic. You have a family that spent nearly two decades trying to get a child help with a severe illness. She went to the best hospitals and eating-disorder clinics to get relief. And despite those best efforts. she could not overcome this problem.”
Ashley G had also been suffering from alcoholism and depression, complicating treatment for eating disorders.
The 5-foot-6 woman wasted away to 57 pounds at one point last year when the state Department of Human Services took her to court requesting that she be force fed.
Morris County Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong sided with Ashley G.
“Whether grounded in common law or constitutional law, our courts have uniformly recognized a patient’s right to refuse medical treatment as a fundamental tenet of respect for patient autonomy, dignity and self-determination,” Armstrong ruled last Nov. 21.
Before he was a judge, Armstrong was a lawyer for the parents of Karen Ann Quinlan, a 21-year-old who was in a persistent vegetative state after mixing alcohol with Valium at a party. Her parents fought successfully for a ventilator to be removed in the landmark 1970s case.
“It [force feeding] would have amounted to torture and we would have been at the same result,” D’Alessandro said. “The court chose the correct and compassionate path.”
The state declined to appeal and the Department of Human Services declined to comment Wednesday.
With Post Wires