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?
Which, sadly, with a few exceptions does not seem to be happening here.
Don't go to doctors from Creighton!! They can't tell an IV or tube from a respirator. They are unable to tell the difference between pulling the plug on medical equipment and slow starvation. Definitely quacks.
Neither does a statement from some committee of the American Catholic bishops. And of course, the Vatican wouldn't know anything about Catholic doctrine.
I guess they thought Karen Ann Quinlan would die if taken off the respirator due to the infallible doctors giving bogus information. And yet she didn't die. Now the doctors say Terri can't swallow. But no one knows because Michael won't let them try.
Thanks. People get confused in details. There are a lot of particulars here to attract diverse attention, like something for everybody. A husband whose motives are suspect and a judiciary system that supports his agenda is a real rotten combo. But it is subsidiary to the greater fact that there is a worldwide movement afoot to make everyone divorced from traditional religion and to become entirely dependent upon the state. Check out Apocalypse (Rev) chapters 13, etc. We are being sucked in. We can't stop it from happening, but we CAN slow it down!
We wouldn't know anything about any news story if it wasn't for publicity.
That has got to be one of the lamest argument I have ever heard. And I remember hearing about Karen Ann Quinlan, it made international news.
I believe this to be the correct answer.
Yes, we all know that the Vatican doesn't have a clue about Catholic doctrine.
It is interesting that there are obviously deep divisions within the Catholic Church over this matter.
If they cannot come together on a policy, it is unfortunate that Freepers have demonized others who don't share their viewpoint.
Precisely. When all the people who have gotten their emotions and religious sensibilities riled up about this one case eventually move on, the 30 years of case law will still exist, people will still have feeding tubes removed, and other patients like Schiavo will died. And I don't see any passion over that fact.
What is your explanation for that policy which differs from the Vaticans?
Your ignorance of Catholic doctrine is showing.
I know Karen Ann Quinlan was not ignored. Quite the opposite. Her's was a ground-breaking case. So was the Cruzan case, which more closely mirrored the Schiavo case. It's due to Quinlan and Cruzan that we now have living wills and 30 years of settled case law about the "right to die."
The point of this thread is that the Schiavo case is not unique in any respect whatsoever except for the epic quarrel between her relatives.
Google it. You can find the quote. The pope does have some standing when it comes to Catholic doctrine, if I correctly understand how that church is set up. He's not like, say, the archbishop of canterbury, somebody the other bishops can ignore with impunity.
So you think the Catholic Conference of Churches is just ignoring the Vatican. And he is ignoring them.
Well, as I said, there is deep disagreement in the Church over this matter.
As much as you may want to believe that, it isn't true. Roughly 80% of her upper brain is gone. The cells died, were reabsorbed by the body and replaced with cerebro-spinal fluid. That is the truth, no matter what you've been manipulated into believing.
You may have some understanding of Church hierarchy, but you seem to be lacking in the area of Church Doctrine.
The cases of Schaivo and Cruzan are virtually identical. Death by removal of feeding tube.
Bravo! Absolutely correct.
Peel back the outer skin of that onion, and the stinky part of it all is the fact that it's about money ($$$), and lots of it.
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