Karen Ann Quinlan

Who was Karen Ann Quinlan?

Karen Ann Quinlan was an important figure in the history of the right to die controversy in the United States.

When she was 22, Quinlan became unconscious after arriving home from a party. She had consumed diazepam, dextropropoxyphene, and alcohol. After she collapsed and stopped breathing twice for 15 minutes or more, the paramedics arrived and took her to a hospital, where she lapsed into a persistent vegetative state. After she was kept alive on a ventilator for several months without improvement, her parents requested the hospital to discontinue active care and allow her to die. The hospital refused, and the subsequent legal battles made newspaper headlines and set significant precedents. The New Jersey Supreme Court eventually ruled in her parents' favor. Although Quinlan was removed from mechanical ventilation during 1976, she lived on in a persistent vegetative state for almost a decade until her death from pneumonia in 1985.

Quinlan's case continues to raise important questions in moral theology, bioethics, euthanasia, legal guardianship and civil rights. Her case has affected the practice of medicine and law around the world. A significant outcome of her case was the development of formal ethics committees in hospitals, nursing homes and hospices.