Word: karens
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Even if New Jersey had a rule on brain death, Karen's case would not quite fit because of her slight brain activity and occasional spontaneous breathing. To cut off life support now might therefore fall within the area of euthanasia. In outright cases of euthanasia-"when someone is suffering from a terminal disease and you inject a drug to terminate life," as Dr. Winter puts it -the law demands a verdict of intentional homicide. But on the question of a doctor shutting off a life-supporting machine and permitting a patient to die, the law is largely silent...
Quinlan Attorney Armstrong has recently backed away from the claim that Karen is dead. Instead, in a brief made public last week, he argues that Joseph Quinlan, as his daughter's guardian, has the responsibility to care for her best interest-and that includes, Armstrong says, the right to die with dignity. Whether this is legally persuasive remains to be seen, but it has attracted support among religious thinkers. Says Theologian Martin Marty: "When in any other age she would be dead, then I believe that it is not playing God to stop extraordinary treatment; in fact...
Armstrong also offers the rather unusual constitutional argument that the Quinlans' right to let Karen die is protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. As Roman Catholics, he says, the Quinlans believe "that earthly existence is but one phase of a continuing life," and thus it is unnecessary for Karen to cling to her present life by "the futile use" of a respiratory machine. Further still, Armstrong contends that the Eighth Amendment also gives the Quinlans the right to let Karen die, claiming that the denial of that right is "cruel and unusual" punishment. Though...
While the Quinlans and the state authorities confront one another, the unconscious Karen also has an attorney. Daniel Coburn, 32, a part-time New Jersey public defender, was appointed by the court to guard what he calls her "constitutional right to life." Coburn has gone so far as to say that Karen could recover. And if the evidence he puts forward supports him in any way, he seems certain to prevail...
...June 16). "Physicians I have known for years stare at me in bewilderment, wondering what kind of situation we're in now," says Dr. William Curran of the Harvard School of Public Health. "They are more afraid than they were before" about pulling the plug. The hospital where Karen lies is asking the court this week for immunity from civil suits or criminal prosecution if the court rules that she should be allowed...