Life or death
Life and Death- In the Matter of Karen Ann Quinlan Today, modern medicine is nothing short of a miracle, and almost every living creature in our civilized world depend on the great wealth of knowledge occupants in this field of work contain. Today with the advancement of medicine, doctors can take patients from being close to death, and revive, or sustain them, through circumstances that otherwise would have killed them. Around the early seventies many major technological and medical advances began to arise in the U.S. During this time period many more people began to have long-term hospitalizations thus making people who would have otherwise died before, live longer. This happened to be the case with Karen Ann Quinlan of New Jersey in 1975. Karen had been in a comatose state for many months, living off of her vital organs and a respirator. Because medicine and technology were advancing so rapidly in the United States, many people had problems at first with the facts of how ethical this new technology was, and how effective it would be to sustain life for long periods of time. Another problem many people faced was the ethical problem of sustaining a person in a vegetative state. Because technology could sustain someone who
This case brought about the ethical dilemma of what is to happen to someone who is not of sound mind and on life support. This includes every and all artificial means of sustaining life. Also, doctors also all agreed that Karen would never be cognitive again, that she would always be in a comatose state. The courts came to this decision for a few reasons. At the end of this case, Joseph Quinlan finally received the official order to take his daughter off of her respirator. Both doctors told Joseph that it would be unethical and it was contrary to the beliefs of traditional western medicine to remove Karen from her respirator. Even today this ethical problem is readily debated, as can be seen in the recent Terry Shivo case. Joseph Quinlan is called to the stand to testify and explain his reasoning behind his decision to ask the court to order the hospital to remove his daughter from her respirator. When they finally come to the conclusion that there is no evidence that he has a motive outside of his daughter they then move on to ask him questions based on his religion, and his own personal ethics. The second reason was her families religious beliefs. The defense then goes on to find out that Joseph Quinlan is a devote catholic, and it is against the roman catholic religion to sustain life in an unnatural state. The last issue for the court to decide over was, who would be responsible for Karen's death, her father or her doctors. The defense then asks Joseph questions about what the two doctors involved in his daughters case advised him and his family to do about the respirator. Usually when people are removed from life supporting machines they usually pass away quickly; although this was not the case with Karen, she lived for another nine years off of her life support before passing away in the hospital in 1985. Who is to say, who can play god and who can't, I guess it will always be a problem that will have to be decided upon by a court of law (Marcus 189-203).
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