Karen Quinlan—The Case Study Analysis

Karen Quinlan—The Case Study
Analysis
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Introduction:
Karen Quinlan, an American woman, living in Pennsylvania, had fallen severely ill and was
hospitalised in 1975. She had gone into a coma and doctors declared that she had hardly any
chance of recovering. Despite the request from her parents, a court rejected their plea and Karen
spent 10 years in that comatose state before she died in 1985(the Guardian, 2018).This analysis
will focus on the case study of Karen Quinlan, and it will analyse the case study putting it in an
ethical framework. Details of the issues facing the persons concerned with theeuthanasiawill also
be discussed, and finally, recommendations will be made.
Statement of Case Fact:
On the 14th of April in 1975, Karen Quinlan collapsed after taking a mix of alcohol and sedatives
at a bar where she was partying with her friends. She was taken to a local hospital and was put
on ventilation. Her doctor Robert Morse examined her and in his court statement said she had
extensive brain damage and was comatose. Her adoptive parents asked the doctors treating Karen
to take her off from the life-support system to end her misery as she could never regain
consciousness. But the doctors, Robert Morse and Arshad Javed, refused to comply and
continued to keep this 21-year-old woman on ventilation and in a coma(Quinlan, 2018). There is
an argument that they had no legal or ethical right to take a patient off the life-support system.
They also feared they could be chargedwith murder as there were no legal provisions at that time
to end the life of a patient like this.
Karen’s adoptive father Joseph Quinlan, a devoutly Catholic, petitioned to a court in New Jersey
with a view to ending the comatose life of his daughter and said his religions supports ending life
like this. This case could be termed as the starting point of the right-to-die movement. Justice
Robert Muir Junior in his ruling placed the fate of Karen in the hands of the doctors and revoked
Joseph Quinlan’s guardianship on the 10th of November 1975. Karen’s parents then moved the
Supreme Court of New Jersey(Rothman, 2017). On March 13, 1976, the Supreme Court verdict
came, and it came in favour of Karen's parents. Joseph and Karen's mother Julia. The court
reappointed them as Karen's guardians and allow them to take her off ventilation. The court said
that allowing Karen to live like that would be a violation of her right to privacy as she needed
extraordinary measures like catheter, feeding tube, etc. But when she was taken off the ventilator
following the Supreme Court’s ruling, she stunned everyone by starting to breathe on her own.
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She continued to live like that, breathing but otherwise completely comatose until her death from
respiratory failure.
Discussion of the issues facing each participant:
The major parties involved in the case were Karen Quinlan, her parents, her doctors,and two
courts. All of them faced some issues that were difficult to address,to say the least. Karen, as a
young woman had a right to live a fulfilling life, at the same time she had a right to live a life on
her terms. But her medical condition was such that this second right she could not exercise. On
the other hand, she could not tell anyone whether she wanted to live or not, so a decision from
her was not available. Another point is, as the Supreme Court had pointed out, Karen had another
issue, and that is relating to her right to privacy(Riga, 2017). This privacy she was not getting in
the hospital setting as her medical care required extensive infringement on her privacy.
Karen’s parents also faced a number of issues. As parents, they did not want their daughter to die
as was made clear to their statement given to the SC that they had never wanted to remove the
feeding tubes and they took several months before moving the court. But they could not watch
their daughter’s wretched condition and complete violation of her right to privacy by her
treatment procedures.
The doctors also faced an issue of treating a patient whom they were convinced will never
recover consciousness(Lang & Seltzer, 2015). But due to the lack of legal allowance and their
medical ethics they could not agree to end her life by taking her off the life-support
system(Pence, 2015). The court faced a number of issues, and first of them was to decide what
Karen parents’ actual intention was. In his petition, Joseph said that he wanted and the first court
verdict points to it as it took Joseph's guardianship. The court also faced the issue of Karen's
right to privacy, and the SC judgement was based on this right.
Analysis using the ethical framework:
If the case study is analysed by putting it in a framework of deontological ethical principles, like
Kantian theory, the analysis reveals Everybody involved in this case, except Karen, faced some
strong ethical dilemmas(Daly, Gokhale, & Ramos-Estebanez, 2014). Simply put, deontological
ethical principles focus on the duty,not on the consequences of that action taken to do justice to
that duty. Karen’s parents though their duty were to end their beloved daughter’s misery and this
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