Question

What can the Terri Schiavo and Karen Quinlan cases teach us about end of life decision making.

Answer 1

The Terri Schiavo and Karen Quinlan cases teach us that the end of life decision making is a complicated process in which the most important factor is first determining the medical condition of the patient clearly as; coma, brain death, vegetative state, locked-in state, and minimally conscious state. This task is challenging and the opinion of doctors may vary as in the case of; Mrs. Schiavo who was described at various times as comatose, brain dead, vegetative, minimally conscious, locked in, and disabled. This is very disturbing as; good medical ethics begins not with the discipline of ethics but with good clinical medicine. Further, the case of Karen Quinlan highlights that there may be disagreements over the decision of mercy death as the patient, his her relatives and the doctors may not be on one page. In case of Karen Quinlan, the relatives wanted mercy death but the doctors did not.