Word: karens
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Karen is in limbo," the mother said in January. "We're all in limbo...
Until her accident, Karen had lived a fairly ordinary life. She was born Mary Anne Monahan in a hospital for unwed mothers in Scranton, Pa. The Quinlans adopted her at four weeks, renamed her, and gave her a strict Roman Catholic upbringing in Roxbury Township, N.J. She was an average student, good at swimming and skiing, popular with classmates...
Nobody knows exactly what went wrong in the spring of 1975. Karen was having some troubles, getting and losing jobs and finally moving in with friends. On the night of April 14, she apparently swallowed a number of tranquilizers shortly before drinking several gin- and-tonics with friends at a tavern. & Suddenly she fell unconscious. Seeing that she had stopped breathing, her friends called an ambulance. She was given oxygen and put on a respirator, but she never regained consciousness. After Karen had remained in a coma for three months with no prospect of recovery, her parents asked...
...arguments were complex and painful. The Quinlans' lawyer argued that Karen had a constitutional right to die, based on both freedom of religion and the right to privacy, that it would be cruel and unusual punishment to keep her alive "after the dignity, beauty, promise and meaning of earthly life have vanished." A court-appointed guardian for Karen countered that the parents had no right to propose what amounted to euthanasia. The doctors' lawyer claimed that no court could determine whether or not Karen might yet recover. The state attorney general also felt obliged to intervene and sided with...
...judge ruled against the Quinlans, but when they appealed to the state supreme court, it granted their plea. In a landmark decision based on the right to privacy, it ruled that "no compelling interest of the state could compel Karen to endure the unendurable." The Quinlans thought their ordeal was nearly over. When the respirator was finally turned off, however, Karen remained alive, year after year...