At the time the court considered the father, Joseph Quinlan as the guardian of Karen Quinlan with the power to make decisions of her medical care Karen condition was in an irreversible coma.
Please respond and give opinion
At the time the court considered the father, Joseph Quinlan as the guardian of Karen Quinlan with the power to make decisions of her medical care Karen condition was in an irreversible coma. This is also known as a persistent vegetative state, meaning the patient has no awareness of anything around her or any persons. Karen Quinlan’s condition was said to never improve and neither cognitive ability restored. Karen’s Quinlan’s life was only being sustained by a respirator and feeding tube, and removal of such would result in death.
Joseph Quinlan was a member of the Roman Catholic Church, where he turned to for guidance in the decision he had to make in regard to his daughter, Karen Quinlan. The courts stated, “While it is not usual for matters of religious dogma or concepts to enter a civil litigation, they were rightly admitted in evidence (In Re Quinlan, 2019).” The judge in this case had to take all motivations and characteristics into account of Joseph Quinlan to be considered in the court. The court stated that religion was only considered in the aspect of its impact on the motivation, conscience, and purpose of the intending guardian and not as a precedent of civil law (In Re Quinlan, 2019).
The court stated that in regard to Karen Quinlan’s rights would be based on her competency to assert her rights. However, due to Karen Quinlan’s condition of being in a persistent vegetative state she was deemed incompetent. The courts then must take into consideration past conversations with friends and family in reference to such topics. It would then only be practical to permit Karen Quinlan’s family to render their best judgment, as to what Karen Quinlan would request in her situation. The courts believed this would be the choice Karen Quinlan would have requested.
The state’s interest in this case was in protecting the sanctity of life and that removing the respirator was equivalent to criminal homicide. “Although the court recognized that the state had an interest in preserving life, it found that this interest weakened and the individual’s rights to privacy grew as the degree of bodily invasion increases and the prognosis dims (Quinlan Case, n.d.).”
The court ultimately decided given the circumstances of Karen Quinlan’s condition was to appoint Joseph Quinlan as guardian of Karen Quinlan with full power to make decisions of Karen Quinlan’s care with the regard to her physicians. I believe this was the appropriate action by the courts in this case. Karen Quinlan was unable to express her decisions in care due to her condition, given her father, Joseph Quinlan was her father and showed no ill intent or malice in his decisions, he would be able to make a judgment on what Karen’s wishes would be. Whereas the doctors and physicians do not know Karen Quinlan on a personal level and did not know of her beliefs and characteristics, her father did. Joseph Quinlan’s actions were in the best interest of his daughter and her value of life.
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