Nancy Cruzan, Research Paper Example

The Supreme Court of United States was confronted with a case that required making a mortal decision in 25^th June, 1990. This case involved Nancy Cruzan who was involved in a car accident that leads to a permanent damage to her brain. This damage made her to remain in a state of comma also called ‘persistent vegetative state’ for a period of over eight years. The doctors reached a consensus that, there were no chances left for Nancy Cruzan to ever salvage her mental faculties.

The parents of Nancy Cruzan concurred with the doctors therefore were for the decision and presented their case to the Supreme case where they argued that the feeding tubes that were used to feed her and thus sustain her life be removed. This led the court in favor of the parents and Nancy Cruzan under the watch of her parents who were on the bedside at the Mount Vernon. Nancy Cruzan was aged 33 years by the time of her death (Lamers, 2003).

The case of Nancy Cruzan therefore became a central focus for bitter discussions on the rights of the family to make a decision involving denial of medical attention and body nourishment on account of total incapacitation of a family member so that the individual can die. As the judge continued to write the final chapter of the Nancy Cruzan case, the debate was ongoing among the public.  The Nancy Cruzan family had undergone a horrible agony for a very long time and their intimate and private information had already permeated to the general public. The public on the other hand owe the family a debt of giving them some information on the living wills as well as applicable legislations that will assist them in planning ahead. Protesters outside the hospital where Nancy Cruzan met her death expressed their dissatisfaction with that action. Rev. Joseph Foreman for example expressed sympathy with the hardships that the family endured as they tried to care for the helpless Nancy Cruzan. However, Rev. Joseph Foreman expressed no sympathy to the family as a result of solving Nancy Cruzan’s family through starvation through euthanasia. Instead, Rev. Joseph Foreman argued that, the family could as well seek the assistance of bona fide volunteers who could have offered unrelenting care to the patient with disregard of the painful condition that had remained in for the last eight years. At the time of her death, Nancy Cruzan did not indicate any sign of pain, distress or discomfort.

According to the ruling of the Supreme Court, the right of death was recognized but the court maintained that, the family was obligated to present convincing and compelling evidence that Nancy Cruzan was willing to die. High echelons of interests in the living will were spurred by the Nancy Cruzan ruling. Additionally, some issues also surfaced regarding advance directives for people to state in advance their preferred treatments and the relevant persons to make their decision in the situations that they become incapacitated. This resulted to about300, 000 requests for the forms for advance directive by members of Society for the Right to Die during the next one month following the Nancy Cruzan ruling.

Although the death of Nancy Cruzan was peaceful and without pain some ethical issues arose in connection to the case. One of the most crucial ethical issue involved assisted suicide and euthanasia which is believed to imply to a ‘good death’. This concept involves terminating the life of an individual using a number of approaches such as suspending a medical treatment and nourishment as was the case of Cruzan. This consequently leads to an alleviating suffering from pain and bringing relief for a person with life threatening illness (Walker, 2003). The act can be voluntary or involuntary. In the case of voluntary euthanasia, a request for death is made by a competent person while in case of involuntary; the life of a person is terminated without his or her consent or knowledge (Gordon & Singer, 2015).

Most patients have to endure great suffering that is attributed to emotional along with physical pains that might result to grave challenges to end their own life. This is normally due to the intensive pain that they encounter at the time of their illness. The decision to persist to this condition or opt for euthanasia is a crucial ethical issue that they go through.

The right to die is yet another ethical issue. The question is that, does a person has the right to terminate life so as to preempt the hardships allied to end-of-life care for the patients. Available evidence on euthanasia indicates that, a number of patients suffer from uncontrolled pain. The patients who have requested for euthanasia indicated prevalence o f psychological together with social concerns as the primary reasons for this action (Chaloner & Sanders, 2007).

This is a case that demands sympathy and it has been extremely difficult feeling in examining this case. Just as the opponents of euthanasia postulated, it is prudent to recommend that, the human life even in a vegetative condition has a meaning. Therefore, the removal of the feeding tube and starvation to Cruzan was an act of devaluing her life. The opponents filed a court case for resumption of feeding of Cruzan but the court found no legal ground for their argument. This decision by the court motivated some protests which led to some protesters being arrested. Some went further in intrude the hospital and reattach the feeding tubes to Cruzan. man has not never had the agility to liberate human kind from death and illnesses despite all the efforts to improve health facilities and increase technological interventions.

Works cited

Chaloner, C., & Sanders, K. Euthanasia: The legal issues. Nursing Standard, 21(36), 42-46, 2007.

Gordon, M. & Singer, P. “Decisions and Care at the End of Life.” Lancet 346 (1995):163–166, 2015.

Lamers, William M.. “Cruzan, Nancy.” Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. 2003.

Walker, G. Medical euthanasia. In Handbook of death and dying. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2003.