NEVADA LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL BUREAU OFFICE OF RESEARCH BACKGROUND PAPER 1977 No. 8 RIGHT TO DIE
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The name Karen Ann Quinlan brings to mind the plight of many apparently terminally ill patients who are kept alive by lifesustaining mechanical procedures. On March 31, 1976, the New Jersey Supreme Court spoke to the issue raised by Miss Quinlan's specific plight and said, based on Karen's right to privacy, that "The present life support systems may be withdr?~m * * * without any civil or criminal liability therefore on the part of any participants." Ironically, Miss Quinlan lives on; so does the question of the role of machines and medication in sustaining vital functions and the propriety of stopping or withholding such treatment from patients. The dilemma doctors, patients, relatives and the legal community face in cases like Karen's is largely due to medical progress in the development of ever more sophisticated means of life support. Several years ago, a patient died when his heart stopped and "extraordinary" treaL"Uent consisted of an injection of adrenaline. However, with respirators, heartlung machines, organ transplants and similar measures, patients who would have died in the past can now be kept alive, at least technically, for weeks, months and even years. The slogan "death with dignity" implies a rejection of the paraphernalia by which a terminal patient is kept alive, usually at great cost to his family and in isolation from it. Such "intensive care," so the argument goes, is often less for the patient's benefit than for the physician's. It allegedly reduces the patient to an object, prolongs dying for many people and needlessly makes death a psychologically, if not physically, anguishing experience.

The upsurge of interest in so-called death with dignity, however, has partially obscured an undercurrent of doubt and some outright opposition on the