Now the 65-year-old is looking to South Korea's Constitutional Court for help in what is the first known legal challenge to the country's assisted dying ban, according to his lawyer.Despite strong opioid pain medication, wheelchair-bound Lee has endured constant discomfort since his 2020 diagnosis with acute myelitis, a rare condition that has no known cure.His urine is drained through a catheter, and a carer manually removes his stool.The pain, Lee said, feels like "my thighs are being crushed by a heavy press, as though my lower body were pinned beneath a dump truck"."I am not really living. I am merely surviving," Lee, who also contends with pressure sores and skin necrosis, told AFP.He has long come to see death as the only escape.In 2022, Lee was planning to travel to Switzerland with the help of Dignitas, a Swiss non-profit that supports people seeking an assisted death.As he cannot travel alone, his daughter was to accompany him.But "joy turned to sorrow", Lee said, when he realised she could face up to 10 years in prison back home under a ban on assisted suicide in South Korea's Criminal Act.
Lee Myung-shik moving to his bed with the help of a carer at his home on Jeju Island © Jung Yeon-je / AFP
