Word: karens
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Curled in a fetal position and shrunk to half her normal 120 Ibs., Karen Ann Quinlan lies helpless in St. Clare's Hospital in Denville, N.J., unaware that she is in effect going on trial for her life. Her eyes are open, unseeing. Her body convulses slightly every few seconds as an artificial respirator, surgically connected to her windpipe, forces her lungs to work, enabling her to continue in what her doctors describe as a "chronic vegetative state." Her heart is beating, and her permanently damaged brain continues to function, sending off slight but steady signals visible...
...Karen's case (TIME, Sept. 29) raises age-old medico-legal questions about human life-now complicated by technology's ability to keep gravely injured victims at the borders of survival. Is there a point at which incurable illness becomes living death? If so, is it permissible for someone's life to be deliberately cut off? And who has the right to make such a decision...
Grace and Dignity. Karen's adoptive parents, Joseph and Julia Ann Quinlan, will appear in court this week in Morris County, N.J., to argue that the 21-year-old girl, who has been in a coma since April, should be allowed to die "with grace and dignity." Both Roman Catholics, they have the support of their priest but not of their doctors or the state authorities. "We sympathize with the Quinlans," says New Jersey Attorney General William Hyland. "We do not wish to add to their anguish." But he insists that state law does not permit a termination...
...Karen Ann Quinlan mysteriously collapsed shortly after drinking gin and tonic with friends. She had apparently taken some tranquilizers earlier, and the combination caused her "to nod out at the bar," as one of the friends put it. He took her to the house she was visiting, and she passed out. He attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, then called an ambulance. After six months in the hospital, her mother says, she "isn't really living any more...
...Elements. The Quinlans' attorney, Paul Armstrong, 30, filed a court paper three weeks ago arguing that "under the existing legal and medical definitions of death recognized by the state of New Jersey, Karen Ann Quinlan is dead." Karen's doctors disagree. Not only is her heart beating, says the hospital's lawyer, but she can breathe sporadically even without the aid of the respirator...