Quinlan and Cruzan and Constitutional Amendments

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at the legal arguments presented by the families of Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan, two women in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery, in order to win the right to remove the women from life-support. The paper summarizes and explains the arguments, which were based on the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and looks at why these arguments might have been flawed.

From the Paper:

"There is one problem with all three amendments, the First, Eighth and Fourteenth, as applied to the cases of Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan: When the Founding Fathers wrote those amendments, they assumed that their provisions would apply to people who could think and act for themselves. Extraordinary medical measures, in those days, consisted of applying leeches and hoping for the best. In short, the universe has changed drastically since those words were penned."

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