Who Decides for Comatose Patients - Essay Example

"Who Decides for Comatose Patients?" is a worthy example of a paper on medical ethics.
The case of Karen Ann Quinlan is known as a very important case in the US history of right-to-die jurisprudence. This is because it initiated a series of steps that led to the development of the right-to-die issues in the US. This case was quite difficult because it raised many ethical questions which were hard to be answered in 1975. It was questioned if the right to make life and death decisions continues for a patient even after he/she becomes incompetent as in comatose patients. Religious scholars also made a withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment an ethical and moral issue. As Quinlan was in a persistent vegetative state, her parents sought express power for authorization of discontinuing all life-sustaining treatment.

The Chancery Court denied Quinlan’s parents this express power to terminate the life of their daughter on grounds of morality and religious concerns. Furthermore, they were also denied the right to take care of Quinlan as her parents as a virtual stranger was appointed in their place to look after the patient. This decision was backward-looking in contrast to the very forward-looking and ahead of its time decision made by the New Jersey Supreme Court according to which “the judges ruled in favor of the family and the mechanical ventilator was withdrawn” (Fine, 2005). The latter court decided that societal morality does not lie in the hands of doctors or any god-like figures, but the parents or the immediate family of a comatose patient. This is why authority to discontinue treatment was granted to Mr. Quinlan which was a very far-sighted decision in my opinion as it paved the way for right-to-die jurisprudence in the US.