Living Wills

On April 14, 1975 Karen Ann Quinlan attended a friends party at a local bar. After mixing gins and tonics with several tranquilizers she passed out. As soon as her friends realized that Karen wasn't breathing they started performing CPR while they waited for the ambulance to arrive. After loading Karen into an ambulance the paramedics continued to perform CPR while they gave Karen oxygen and hooked her to a respirator. Doctors tried to revive Karen with stimuli. It was no use; Karen was unable to breathe on her own. The emergency room doctors at the Newton Memorial Hospital realized that they were dealing with a patient that had an extreme brain injury.

Nine days after the accident happened Karen was transferred from the Newton Memorial Hospital to St Clare's Hospital.At the time doctors announced that she was in a persistent vegative state.

Karen Ann Quinlan was twenty-one years old.

On July 31, 1975 Karen's family and her Catholic Church had a conference, later that day her parents requested that their daughter be removed from the respirator. At first the hospital agreed. St. Clare's staff changed its mind before the deed was done and refused to remove the respirator.

The Quinlan's were forced to go to court. The court appointed an outside party as Karen's guardian, that guardian then argued that what the Quinlan's were asking to do, to remove their daughter from the life sustaining respirator, was the same as euthanizing their daughter.

The Quinlans lost the first time they pleaded their case in front of the Supreme Court. They later won when they appeared in front of the New Jersey Supreme Court.

After the respirator was removed Karen breathed on her own, living in a vegative state for the next ten years before she passed away at the Morris View Nursing Home.

She was just thirty-one years old.

Karen Ann Quinlan's case was one of the first cases that drew attention to how frail life really is. For the first time people really thought about the difference between a livable life and dyeing a dignified death.

After Karen's death hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices were required to have an ethics committee. Some people started thinking about how they wanted their medical details handled if they were unable to communicate with their doctors. Some of these people drew up documents expressing their wishes in documents called living wills and advanced health care directives.

Nearly thirty years after Karen attended that fateful party the courtroom dramas of the Teri Shiva case drew media attention. As people watched the two heartbroken parties argue what was best for Teri. Once again people found themselves thinking about living wills and advanced health care directives.

After the Teri Schivao case people realized that not only could living wills and advanced health care directives help promise that their medical wishes would be fulfilled but planning in advance could also prevent families from being divided by tragedy.

About The Author Jeff Moore writes various articles about different topics, from living wills, to digital cameras. Get more information regarding http://www.intrepidattorney.com/?p=3