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?
Good point. The MSM reporting on this is as disgraceful as Judge Greer's conduct... and they were still controversial cases. Alternative media has given us the other side of the story.
E.g., the writer errs of course in calling Terri Schiavo 'in a coma' - she is awake at times, like all of us are. She is brain-damaged not brain-dead - BIG difference.
No case is identical, medically, ethically or legally.
example:
Terri's medical condition is not as severe as those other cases. Terri is not in a coma like those other cases were.
We've gone a few rungs down the slippery slope since Cruzan.
"The court hasn't mandated it in this case either. It has complied with the wishes of Ms. Schiavo's husband/guardian. "
Wrong, that is not what the lawyer Felos said. It's a court order.
Thanks for the Catholic teaching on this...
" ...An unconscious [in the context, PVS is mentioned] patient must be treated as a living human person with inherent dignity and value. Direct killing of such a patient is as morally reprehensible as the direct killing of anyone else."
You say:
"There are tough cases, but this one is black and white for Catholics."
Yes, there *are* tough cases - a terminally ill degenerative case, for example, needing a respriator, or herioc life-extension ... this is *not* such as case. food and water for a disabled person should always be given.
Can't quite agree here.
Each case is different, but the most unique aspect of Terri's case is that's it's happening in Florida where the Democrats use everything that happens there as a club to head of the Bushes. You think all this attention would be paid to someone in Terri's condition who was living in Rhode Island?
Wise up. She's being used to turn both the GOP base and the GOP "moderates" against GW and Jeb. You're a sap and the question is still absurd.
The legal prinicple the court applied was to follow the patient's wishes, not the husband's wishes. The guardian has a legal duty to carry out the patient's wishes, assuming of course, those wishes are legal to carry out.
I am not saying wishing to starve to death is illegal. Just pointing out a very basic error in the way you have framed the case.
Repeating 113 above ... quoting peach, and then a paragraph from the link peach provided ...
For those interested, this is the official position of the Unitd States Conference of Catholic Bishops. There are a great many instances, including Terri's, where death by starvation is permitted within church doctrine.
When a patient is not competent to make his or her own decisions, a proxy decisionmaker who shares the patient's moral convictions, such as a family member or guardian, may be designated to represent the patient's interests and interpret his or her wishes. Here, too, moral limits remain relevant -- that is, morally the proxy may not deliberately cause a patient's death or refuse what is clearly ordinary means, even if he or she believes the patient would have made such a decision.
How do we know it is in you?
Careful where you are going there. Judging wherether people have souls and are worthy to live has happened before.
It never ended well.
I'm not inclined to think that MSchiavo's moral convictions are demonstrably common enough with her's so as to speak on her behalf. If it was an issue of property or child custody, his wildcatting would be more than enough to disqualify his speaking on her behalf.
Yeah, I posted that last night but I suppose people have lost interest in the thread (or the truth).
What would be more useful in probing the truth would be to honestly outline the fact patterns of each case, as well as their eventual outcomes. There was a post here that said Cruzan's father commited suicide some years after he carried out his daughter's wish to starve to death. I wonder if that is true. If he did, I wonder if he left a suicide note. If he left a note, I wonder what it said.
I have noticed lots of misrepresentation of fact on this issue, which indicated exactly how divisive the issue is. There must be a deep moral point involved, in order to cause such conduct.
There is. And it is that moral point that I have been making repeatedly. I do not know how much of what Terri's family says that I believe. I also know that it doesn't matter. The moral principle involved here is "do we kill people with healthy bodies but damaged brains?"
The argument made is that they are not "really" alive so it is not "really" killing. I think that is a dangerous road to go down. Where is the line drawn? When there is doubt I prefer to error on the side of life. I would rather give rights to a "not-person"(is there such a thing?) then risk killing a "person".
To argue that they are "suffering" causes their whole "not alive" argument to collapse as if you are not alive then you can not suffer. If they are alive enough to suffer then they are alive.
If they are alive then they deserve the status of a person. You may not kill a person with impunity.
That's the point of the PVS definition. To say that the body feels no pain.
I'm with you, but outright say that my position comes from a rigid "human life is sacred" belief. I think suicide is wrong, and that it is an ethical lapse of monumental proportion for the medical community to withdrwas food ans sustenance from an otherwise healthy body.
The ironic thing is that if those people really thought it through they would be among the most ardent of the pro-life defenders. If you believe in an afterlife then death is no big deal. But if this is all we have. If life is just what is here on earth. If what comes after is nothingness. Then it is a crime beyond imagining to take that away.
Even marginal existence is better then non-existence.
If you err, err on the side of life.
Death lasts for eternity.
"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?"
Maybe because most people don't know that it's legal to starve people to death in the US in the name of "compassion." I think you'll hear more about it before too long.
I am very surprised you say this. There is so much misinformation out there about this case. I have HEARD repeatedly by lawyers commenting on this case that the COURT HAS MANDATED her FEEDING TUBE removal and that EVEN IF THE COURT gave the guardianship to the PARENTS that it would NOT allow the parents to re-install the tube........by the way JUST CAME DOWN the FINAL APPEAL has been turned down. A sad sad day!!
"Nor does it explain why so many people what both the President and the Governor of Florida to exceed their authority in this one case. What happened to equal protection under the law?"
Equal protection is exactly the reason why Teri should be removed from Schiavo's custody. He's too compromised to speak for her. Too many conflicts of interest.
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