Posted on 03/25/2005 5:01:12 PM PST by Wolfstar
Karen Ann Quinlan was the first modern icon of the right-to-die debate. The 21-year-old Quinlan collapsed at a party after swallowing alcohol and the tranquilizer Valium on April 14, 1975. Doctors saved her life, but she suffered brain damage and lapsed into a persistent vegetative state.
Karen Ann Quinlan
A dispute arose between the hospital officials and Karen’s parents about whether or not she should be removed from her respirator. Karen’s parents did not want to take extraordinary means to keep Karen alive; however, the hospital officials disagreed and wanted to keep her alive. The Quinlans believed that they had the right to legal guardianship for Karen. This led to two court cases involving who should become Karen’s legal guardian.
Her family waged a much-publicized legal battle for the right to remove her life support machinery. The Quinlans lost the first court case at the U.S. Supreme Court, but were victorious in New Jersey’s Supreme Court. This decision gave Joseph Quinlan, Karen’s father, legal guardianship over Karen. As a result, the Quinlan family decided to remove Karen from her respirator and the physicians obliged.
Unexpectedly, Karen continued breathing and was moved to Morris View Nursing Home where she lived for 10 years. She passed away on June 11, 1985.
The New Jersey Supreme Court Ruling became a precedent case for ethical dilemmas involving right-to-die cases in two significant ways. First, this case led to the requirement that all hospitals, hospice, and nursing homes have ethics committees. Second, it led to the creation of advance directives, in particular the living will.
Nancy Cruzan
The way Nancy's family engraved her headstone
Like Karen Ann Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan became a public figure after entering a persistent vegetative state. A 1983 auto accident left Cruzan permanently unconscious and without any higher brain function, kept alive only by a feeding tube and steady medical care. Cruzan's family waged a legal battle to have her feeding tube removed. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the Cruzans had not provided "clear and convincing evidence" that Nancy Cruzan did not wish to have her life artificially preserved. The Cruzans later presented such evidence to the Missouri courts, which ruled in their favor in late 1990. The Cruzans stopped feeding Nancy in December of 1990, and she died later the same month.
Much has changed in the years since Nancy's death. The federal government passed a law requiring all persons entering a hospital in the United States be told about living wills. Most states have laws governing advance directives, durable powers of attorney and health care proxies.
Now, nearly 30 years to the day that Karen Quinlan collapsed, we have the Terri Schiavo case making headlines. In the intervening 30 years much precedent has been set and much case law has been settled in the so-called right-to-die area. Estimates are that some 30,000-35,000 people in the United States are currently in similar or identical states as Terri Schiavo, yet we do not hear about them. Life support measures -- including feeding tubes -- are removed virtually daily. Yet we do not hear about those cases. Why? Because the only thing unique about the Schiavo case is the epic family feud propelling it into the headlines.
People who so passionately argue for Schiavo to be saved have nothing to say about all the other similar or identical cases. Why? If one believes that all life must be saved, then why fight only for this single life?
All the folks saying starvation is good for you really ought to get out there and demonstrate it for us.
So, in other words, you are talking through your hat.
Mercy killing and suicide is being promoted as being normal and OK. The future for elder care?
What you say is quite fair. However, the point is this: Terri Schiavo is going to die very soon in all likelihood. Then what? Does everyone just walk away? Do they lash out in willy nilly in all directions, blaming anyone and everyone from the husband all the way up to the POTUS? Was this really just about the Terri Schiavo soap opera, or about the legal and medical issues highlighted by this case? Were people really worked up about principles? If so, the principles far transcend this one case.
Don't be silly.
Passion for the many is an abstraction. As individuals, not groups, have rights, the best way so address the needs of the many is to regard the individual's problems like a canary in a mine-- a warning that there are undoubtably other problems. And maybe one reason we don't hear about them is that it costs a million dollars to pay for the legal costs.
Interestingly, from this article one can conclude that, per federal law, one cannot pull a feeding tube unless clear and convincing evidence is available that the affected person would wish it to be pulled under the circumstances. I don't think most people would agree that Terri's husband's interested hearsay testimony constitutes clear and convincing evidence. I know that per legal technicalities his testimony is not regarded as hearsay, but give me a break: society has watered down the marriage contract to such an extent that no one can seriously regard his testimony as anything but virtual hearsay.
That has been my "song" here for years.
You need to put in some inflection marks in your posting.
I can't tell if it is dripping with sarcasm or straight.
Clear and convincing evidence can be a co-worker or two from about ten years ago, as happened when they wanted to kill Nancy Cruzan.
This is the lead paragraph from a Washington Times article, March 24, 2005.
"Terri Schiavo's medical condition is not particularly rare -- an estimated 30,000 to 45,000 patients in the United States are being kept alive in persistent vegetative states through feeding tubes."
Here is the link: washingtontimes.com
Do you need publicity to activate your religious or moral outrage if you think removing a feeding tube is wrong? If you either don't understand the question, or have no answer for it, what can I say.
Parents don't want the publicity. They want their daughter alive.
If you aren't aware, the care Terri is getting does not require a facility at all.
She gets nothing that couldn't be done at home.
It doesn't require any special education, just some minimal training on feeding tubes .
Many, many parents do it for their kids at home.
guard·i·an n.
1. One that guards, watches over, or protects.
2. Law. One who is legally responsible for the care and management of the person or property of an incompetent or a minor.
Funny but I don't see someone who can have you killed because they feel like it in that definition.
Perhaps the powers of guardians need to be looked into.
This statement is inane.
Are you capable of raising your eyes from one case and considering the broader issues highlighted by it?
Yes, a lot of people will walk away from this story when she dies. You can probably watch leave them on foxnews.
This isnt an issue in every case. In fact, there has been an explosion of people inquiring about living wills this week.
It simply will not be an across the board protest movement about however many cases you say exist. It is fact dependent, and only becomes a public issue when a controversy arises.
Not me. See the link to the Washington Times article I posted in #152.
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