Some medical ethicists warned then that the ruling was the beginning of a trend--the slippery slope--which could lead to decisions to end a person's life being made by third parties not only on the basis of medical condition but also on such considerations as age, economic status, or even ethnicity.6
             In 1990, the Supreme Court case, Cruzan v. Missouri, recognized the principle that a person has a constitutionally protected right to refuse unwanted medical treatment. In 1983, Nancy Beth Cruzan lapsed into an irreversible coma from an auto accident. Before the accident, she had said several times that if she were faced with life as a "vegetable," she would not want to live. Her parents went to court in 1987 to force the hospital to remove the tube by which she was being given nutrition and water. The Missouri Supreme Court refused to allow the life support to be withdrawn, saying there was no "clear and convincing" evidence Nancy Cruzan wanted that done. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed, but it also held that a person whose wishes were clearl
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