One day in January 1980 in Chicago Illinois, a women name Nancy Grace was driving excessively fast and lost control, the accident was relentless deadly accident. When the paramedics arrived, they were able to restore her breathing and heartbeat; she was then transported to the hospital, unconscious, 26 year old Nancy continued to be fed through a surgically implanted tube. After several years, “a court found that although her respiration and circulation continued unaided, she was unconscious to her surroundings except for reflexive responses to sound and perhaps painful stimuli, her brain had been degenerated and severely injured, irreversibly”(1996-2000 Chris Docker) she was a spastic quadriplegic; she suffered contraction of her four extremities, with irreversible muscle and tendon damage; she had no cognitive or reflex ability to swallow food or water or to maintain her essential daily needs nor would she ever recover such an ability. She lay in vegetative state even though she had told her housemate that, if sick, injured or extremely ill, she would not wish to continue her life and be a bother to anyone unless she could live “at least halfway normal”. This was the first time the United States Supreme Court had been faced with what we call the "right to die”( 2000 Chris Docker) or known yet as “Euthanasia”. They said that Missouri had "arrogated to itself" the power to define life, and Nancy’s life and liberty consequently was put into disturbing conflict. She had not
This problem first began to surface in the 1980s when the court had to face Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health. In this case the court had to decide by “clear and convincing evidence” that the comatose patient’s (Nancy Beth Cruzan) desire to terminate her life before the courts would allow her family’s wish of disconnecting her feeding tube be carried out. Unfortunately eight of nine judges said no to the proposition and concluded that the right
This case is the case of Rodriguez v. British Columbia in 1993. Sue Rodriguez had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; more commonly know as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 1991. Rodriguez was aware that this disease would eventually lead to her not being able to breathe on her own, move on her own, or even eat without a feeding tube. Rodriguez had the attitude that she wanted to enjoy as much of life as possible, but when the time came that she could no longer enjoy life, she wanted the assistance of a doctor to end her life. In her own words, she asked, “If I cannot give consent to my own death, whose body is this? Who owns my life?”(Windsor Sun). In the opinion of Rodriguez, she should have the choice to end her life, and that if she could not do the act without assistance, it should be legal for a physician to help her. She ended up losing her case in a Supreme Court appeal. The decision stated, “No consensus can be found in favour of the decriminalization of assisted suicide. To the extent that there is consensus, human life must be respected.” (Windsor
Sylvia Law, a published author in the University of Maryland Law Review, in her essay, “Physician-Assisted Death: An Essay on Constitutional Rights and Remedies,” addresses the issues in constitutional law surrounding the controversy of a person’s right to die. In the three parts to her essay, Law contends and considers whether “statutes that criminalize medically assisted suicides violate the liberty and privacy rights of terminally ill” and whether “assisted suicide should be considered a constitutionally protected right and also the ways in which these issues come before the courts”. Her purpose is to analyze and inform on the laws and challenges relating to this issue in order to make readers aware of the problems that are created by the
The right to die has been brought to the media and public spotlight through the cases of Karen Ann Quinlan, Cruzan v. Missouri, and Vacco v. Quill. This issue has been the topic of heated debate for years in the religious, scientific, and political community. This is because this topic ties into many communities and effects a large amount of people.
The state of Missouri’s Right to Life Policy affirms the legal action of permitting people to die with “clear and convincing” evidence supporting the patient’s desire to end his/her life in a situation of chronic illness or incompetence. The controversial topic of refusing treatment and/or assisting in suicide reached the Supreme Court of the United States for the first time on December 6, 1989. Lower court decisions and appeals contributed to the events of the Cruzan V. Missouri case leading up to the highest court of the United States of America.
Some states and countries allow physical assisted suicide to patients who are deemed terminally ill. Every year thousands of patients are place in hospice care, only to be given an estimated time frame of how long they have to live. During this time, these patients are suffering from terminal diseases and conditions. In 1994, Oregon became the first state to write the Death with Dignity act into law. For those suffering from terminal illness this was great news. However, this controversial law would soon be repealed in 1997, only to be reinstated in 2006. Ever since then, other states have exercised their rights to adopt similar laws and others have not due to the controversy surrounding this topic. Although some states have endorsed this topic,
The Court points to the historical and political trends of the United States. This includes legislation against assisted suicide and rejection of legislation that supports it in the past. Considering the fact that they do not offer support for end of life procedures, The Court decides that there must not be a “fundamental right” associated with choosing a particular death.
Without a living will Terri Schiavo, an individual who collapsed and was unable to communicate her final scenario of how she preferred to end her life or pursue an alternative given her circumstances, commenced a highly complex legal discussion within the U.S court system. Being incapable of conveying her end of life issues and neglecting to appoint a health care power of attorney proceeding her condition, Schiavo's family did not know what her wishes were. With conflicting notions from the medical, judicial, as well as personal dispositions, Schiavo's case and her life were in the hand of morally conflicted others (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2011, Jennings, 2010).
In 1976, the landmark case of Karen Quinlan established the right to refuse medical care on the basis of the right to privacy (McGowen, 2011, p. 64). Karen Quinlan’s parents requested that their 21 year old daughter be removed from mechanical ventilation after she was deemed to be in a persistent vegetative state after mixing a strict diet, drugs, and alcohol. The physician refused to remove life sustaining treatment despite Karen’s persistent vegetative state, as she did not meet the criteria for brain death. The case was appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court where
After finally accepting that Nancy would not be revived, the family asked the state hospital to remove her feeding tubes so that she could move on. Unfortunately, it could not be this easy. Discovering that Nancy was not allowed by the state to be taken off of life support, they proceeded with legal action. After several suits between the Cruzan family and the state's attorney general in the Missouri court system, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear its first right-to-die case, that of Nancy Cruzan. In a 5-4 decision, the Cruzan family lost, buried in hundreds of pages of the Supreme Court’s opinion. Eventually, their lawyer was able to find the key that would let them retry the case in Missouri, leading them to a victory (Gumm).
A state's categorical ban on physician assistance to suicide as applied to terminally ill patients who wish to avoid unendurable pain and hasten inevitable death substantially interferes with this protected liberty interest and cannot be sustained. The right of a competent, terminally ill person to avoid excruciating pain and embrace a timely and dignified death bears the sanction of history and is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. The exercise of this right is as central to personal autonomy and bodily integrity as rights safeguarded by this Court's decisions relating to marriage, family relationships,
One’s body and life are one’s own to dispose as one sees fit. Everyone is entitled to the right to die concept, in that they can decline or accept life-sustaining treatments. However, this was a dispute in the case of Terri Schiavo where all three branches of government were involved to decide on whether they should keep her on life-prolonging measures or discontinue after she was left in a comatose state. After no sign of improvement for over two months, her diagnosis was changed to a persistent vegetative state leaving her life decisions in the hands of her husband, Michael. Michael argued that his wife would not have wanted the prolonged life support and even went as far as starting a petition to remove her feeding tube, which her parents
Ever since the emergence of the right to die concept, there has been many instances in which the cases have reached courts. Despite the numerous accounts of people attempting to have the right to die made justifiable, the rulings opposed any sort of justification to a right to die. The Nancy Cruzan case became more prevalent because of the growing number of people on medical procedures like Nancy Cruzan's. Amidst the growing concern over ending up similarly as Nancy Cruzan or being in a terminally ill state, movements and acts are being pushed in order to accommodate those that are suffering.
In the early months of 2005, Terri Schiavo’s life story, involving her persistent vegetative state (PVS) captured the worldwide spotlight and brought up controversial issues surrounding guardian care of the patient, as well as the overall decisions made by Congress. The government involvement in her case impeded any decisions the family and spouse could properly address for the well being of Schiavo (Montero 166). The governmental court system in Terri Schiavo’s case behaved immorally in regard to the eventual removal of her feeding tube.
Euthanasia remains highly controversial in the U.S. because even a state such as Oregon which upholds the Death with Dignity Act “passed by a margin of 51% to 49% as stated by the Oregon Health Authority. Thus, even though Niles suggested that Oregon supports euthanasia, the Death with Dignity Act seemingly remains controversial because almost half of the population in Oregon is against Euthanasia, and there are stakeholders who still challenge its implementation. In the context of this paper, euthanasia refers to an instance in which “the physician would act directly, for instance by giving a lethal injection, to end the patient’s life” (Niles 254). Clearly, euthanasia remains illegal in most parts of the country, and this is because it is a contentious moral and legal issue according to Haberman. There are numerous arguments which support and oppose euthanasia. Even so, the benefits of euthanasia outnumber its detriments. This implies that euthanasia should be legalized across the remaining states in the U.S. The legalization of euthanasia would have economic, ethical/moral, legal, and personal benefits.