Word: quinlans
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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...
Although the Quinlan case has attracted worldwide attention, it is, in its tragic essentials, not that rare. The only estimate for "terminal patients kept alive by mechanical means," says Dr. Robert Veatch of the Institute of Society, Ethics and the Life Sciences, is "lots and lots." Doctors in such cases often act alone and disconnect life-supporting machinery. "It is done all the time," says New Jersey Neurological Surgeon Arthur Winter. In Denver Anna Mair made the decision two years ago after her son David, 10, had been hit by a truck. Realizing that he would "never be anything...
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...
...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...