MINNEAPOLIS — Since May, 87-year-old Helen Wanglie has lain unconscious and motionless at the Hennepin County Medical Center here. Although there is no hope for recovery, she is kept alive by a breathing machine, feedings through a stomach tube, and round-the-clock care.

In most such cases, physicians and family agree that further care is futile and quietly let the patient die. Not in the Wanglie case.

In what experts say is the first case of its kind, the hospital is seeking court permission to disconnect Wanglie's respirator while the family fights to continue her care. The dispute is attracting national attention as a crucial test of whether physicians or patients and their families have the final word about the right to live or die.

At first glance, the situation appears to be the reverse of the case of Nancy Cruzan, the comatose Missouri woman whose family fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court for permission to stop her artificial feedings, despite the objections of physicians.

On closer inspection, both cases center on what ethicists call "patient autonomy." For this reason, the Wanglie family is actually attracting the support of leading right-to-die groups, among others.

"This hospital is trying to turn back the clock and reverse the whole thrust of modern biomedical ethics," said Susan M. Wolf, an associate for law at the Hastings Center in Briarcliff, N.Y. "If the hospital wins, it means patients or the people they designate to speak for them lose decisional authority that we have all been fighting long and hard to secure for them."

Dr. Michael Belzer, medical director of the hospital, said physicians should not be forced by families "to provide medical care they feel is inappropriate and which can't advance the patient's personal interests. . . . In this extreme case, we feel that the family is not acting appropriately."

Earlier this month, lawyers for the hospital asked the Hennepin County District Court to disqualify the family from taking part in Wanglie's medical care and to appoint a conservator who will decide whether the respirator should be disconnected. A hearing on the request is expected within the next several weeks.

Fanella Rouse, executive director of a New York City-based group that monitors right-to-die cases across the country, said the Wanglie case is unprecedented.