Gale Encyclopedia of American Law Volume 3 P40 fully illuminates today's leading cases, major statutes, legal terms and concepts, notable persons involved with the law, important documents and more. Legal issues are fully discussed in easy-to-understand language, including such high-profile topics as the Americans with Disabilities Act, capital punishment, domestic violence, gay and lesbian rights, physician-assisted suicide and thousands more. | 378 DEATH AND DYING but still breathing and circulating blood. If a brain-dead person is maintained on artificial respiration until his or her heart fails then these usable organs would perish. Thus the medical category of brain death makes it possible to accomplish another goal saving lives with organ transplants. The Right to Die Individual Autonomy and State Interests The first significant legal case to deal with the issue of termination of life-sustaining medical care was in re quinlan 70 . 10 355 A. 2d 647 . This 1976 case helped resolve the question of whether a person could be held liable for withdrawing a life-support system even if the patient s condition is irreversible. In 1975 Karen Ann Quinlan became comatose for reasons that were not understood and she was put on a mechanical respirator. Her parents authorized physicians to use every possible means to revive her but no treatment improved her condition. Although doctors agreed that the possibility of her recovering consciousness was remote they would not pronounce her case hopeless. When her parents themselves lost all hope of Quinlan s recovery they presented the hospital with an authorization for the removal of the respirator and an exemption of the hospital and doctors from responsibility for the result. However the attending doctor refused to turn off the respirator on the grounds that doing so would violate his professional OATH. Quinlan s parents then initiated a lawsuit asking the court to keep the doctors and the hospital from interfering with their decision to remove Quinlan s respirator. In a unanimous decision the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Quinlan had a constitutional right of privacy that could be safeguarded by her legal guardian that the private decision of Quinlan s guardian and family should be honored and that the hospital could be exempted from criminal liability for turning off a respirator if a hospital ethics committee agreed that the chance for recovery is remote. .
