The legal issue here is that there was no law in place which dictated who would be granted guardianship of Terri Schiavo. She was found to be non-compos mentis and had “no written medical directive” (Perry et al. 745). This demonstrates that she was incapable of making her own decisions and would therefore need someone to make her health decisions for her. In addition, there is no complete Autonomy in this case, considering Mrs. Schiavo’s inability to express his wife’s wishes in written form. Furthermore, she had no mandate describing her end of life wishes. This demonstrates how difficult it was for her family to decide on what was best for her. Her husband was chosen as her legal guardian with the approval of her parents (744). Terri Schiavo’s parents and husband jointly took care of her but her health never improved. The family began to argue once Michael Schiavo chose to discontinue supporting Terri’s life unnaturally. He made this decision because he believed that his wife “would not want to live in a persistent vegetative state” (745). Mr. Schiavo was convinced that his wife would not return to her normal self and that she was suffering by being kept alive. Therefore, he came to the conclusion that unplugging her feeding tube and letting her rest in peace would be the right thing to do. One can understand why the …show more content…
Schindlers, who defended the sanctity of life, were against their son-in-law’s decision to end their daughter’s life so soon. They watched their daughter grow up before their very eyes and could never replace her with anyone. It was not easy for them to let go so suddenly. There was a continuous debate on the removal of Terri’s life support between her husband and her parents. Mr. Schiavo finally “petitioned the guardianship court” (Perry et al. 745) to intervene independently in order to find out whether Mrs. Schiavo’s feeding should be discontinued or not. The Schindlers and Mr. Schiavo had numerous battle in court about removing Terri’s life support for years. Both the Schindlers and Mr. Schiavo presented their witnesses during the court hearing. The court initially wanted to know if Mrs. Schiavo was able to declare her preference explicitly, but they discovered that her health condition meant that there was no possibility of her regaining the ability of speech (746). Judge Greer, who saw to the case at that time, ruled that the feeding tube be removed upon witnessing convincing testimony. This testimony, given by Mr. Schiavo, his brother, and his brother’s wife, supported the idea that Mrs. Schiavo would not have wanted to live artificially. Mrs. Schiavo’s parents appealed the judge’s decision which led to other hearings but still ended up ruling in favour of Mr. Schiavo in 2005, thus, ending Terri’s life. The principle of Justice plays a big role here, because the final goal of these court battles is to ensure that Terri received the treatment that she would have wanted. However, it is difficult and practically impossible to know for sure if this is what she wished, due to a lack of hard evidence. (H.Y.) Therefore, it was a victory for the rights of a spouse to make the medical decisions on behalf of a partner who is non-compos mentis.
A case such as this one was the first of its kind, so the outcome of the trials was very important for setting a precedent in similar cases in the future. This is a Landmark Case for long-term comatose patients without a mandate. From then on, there would be no more legal issues when facing this type of situation. It is also important to note that American conservative groups used this case to promote their disapproval of Mr. Schiavo’s position, in a failed attempt to end the Death with Dignity Act.
(H.Y.)
Cynthia Adae was taken to Clinton Memorial Hospital on June 28, 2006. She was taken to the hospital with back and chest pain. A doctor concluded that she was at high risk for acute coronary syndrome. She was transferred to the Clinton Memorial hospital emergency room. She reported to have pain for two or three weeks and that the pain started in her back or her chest. The pain sometimes increased with heavy breathing and sometimes radiated down her left arm. Cynthia said she had a high fever of 103 to 104 degrees. When she was in the emergency room her temperature was 99.3, she had a heart rate of 140, but her blood
The court’s decision based on the treatment of young people in this case emphasizes on the concept of social justice, which means the fair allocation of wealth, resources and opportunity between members in a society. The appellant in this case, Louise Gosselin, was unemployed and under the age of 30. She challenged the Quebec Social Aid Act of 1984 on the basis that it violated section 7 of her security rights, section 15 of her equality rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and section 45 of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. For the purpose of this essay, we shall explore the jurisprudence analysis of section 7 and section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 7 states that everyone has the
Emilio is terminally ill and is under the care of the Children’s Hospital in Texas. He is placed on life support by a respirator and is given pills causing the child to spend majority of his time in the pediatric intensive care unit unconscious. Showing no signs of improvement, the physician has requested the parents look for another hospital willing to continue aiding Emilio within a period of 10 days. Under the Texas “futile-care” law, the hospital’s ethics committee can, “declare the care of a terminally ill patient to be of no benefit,” allowing them to terminate care after a given time period. (Moreno, Sylvia. Case Puts Futile-Treatment Law Under a Microscope.
The case had a many important questions to it. In one question: is physician-assisted suicide morally, ethically, legally correct, and/or fair to anyone?
There are many ethical paradigms through which humans find guidance and justification for their own actions. In the case of contractarianism, citizens of a state are entitled to human rights, considered to be unalienable, and legal rights, which are both protected by the state. As Spinello says, “The problem with most rights-based theories is that they do not provide adequate criteria for resolving practical disputes when rights are in conflict” (14). One case that supports Spinello is the case of Marlise Munoz, a brain-dead pregnant thirty-three year old, who was wrongly kept on life support for nearly two months at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. Misinterpretation of the Texas Advance Directives Act by John Peter Smith Hospital led to the violation of the contractarian paradigm. Although the hospital was following the directive in order to maintain legal immunity for its hospital staff, the rights of the family were violated along with the medical fundamental principle to “first, do no harm.”
In February of 1990 a woman named Terri Schiavo collapsed at home suffering cardiac arrest in her home in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was resuscitated but had severe brain damage because she had no oxygen going to her brain for several minutes. Terri was severely brain damaged and in a vegetative state but could still breathe and maintain a heart beat on her own. After two and a half months and no signs of improvement, impaired vision, and the inability to move her arms and legs she needed a feeding tube to sustain her life since she seemed to be in a persistent vegetative state. For 2 years doctors attempted speech and physical therapy with no success. In 1998 Schiavos husband claimed she would not want to live in that quality of life without a prospect of recovery so he tried several times over the course of many years to pull the feeding tube so she could pass. Bob and Mary Schindler challenged and fought for a
Terry Shiavo was a young female, who became sick after she had an accident in which left her brain dead for the rest of her life. Her husband, Michael Shiavo was her caretaker and was later appointed as her legal guardian on June 18, 1990. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/schiavo/). This was a struggle for Mr. Shiavo, as it would have been for me and many others. From this point on, Mr. Shiavo knew that he had a hard and long struggle dealing with the fact that his wife, whom he loved, is now brain dead, and he is the one left to care for her and make medical decision on her behalf. Her family was there for her also, and this is how all of this became a problem between Mr. Shiavo, and Terry's' parents Mr. and Mrs. Schindler.
At one point Quill (2005) writes, “He believed that his wife would not want to be kept alive,” and slightly later in the paragraph says, “The Schindler family, however, did not accept the diagnosis of a persistent vegetative state, believing instead that Ms. Schiavo’s ” (p. 1631). Why would he use “his wife” in place of “Ms. Sciavo” in the beginning, and why did he use “Ms. Schiavo” instead of a familial term towards the end? Using the same type of term would have kept neutrality, but deviating from this subconsciously makes readers believe the relationship between Mr. Schiavo and Ms. Schiavo was stronger than the one between Ms. Schiavo and the Schindlers, which would lead to readers be more inclined to agree that Mr. Schiavo was
Terri Schiavo is a forty year old women who had a severe heart attack 15 years ago which resulted in brain damage. She had no living will so there is no legal document of what she would have wanted if she became brain damage and couldn’t function on her own but her husband, Michael Schiavo, says that after 15 years of being on a feeding tube she would have wanted to die. The question is should he have the right to remove the feeding tube? Anybody who knows me will know that my answer is no! The reason for that is because I am a Christian and I do not believe in terminating someone’s life. It’s my belief that as long as a persons heart is beating he or she stills has life in them.
... in terms of living or dying. By this logic, people in vegetative states should also have rights analogous to that of an infant at least. Many people practice or research medicine for the altruistic reasons and derive pleasure and a purpose in life by restoring the injured and sick to proper health. If a potential treatment can be developed by doctors and researchers to restore people in vegetative states to normal cognitive levels, it would be considered wrong to allow such a person to die because, like an infant, there exists the chance for them to develop an ability to function as long as research is continued to find a way to reverse such a condition.
In an effort to provide the standard of care for such a patient the treating physicians placed Ms. Quinlan on mechanical ventilation preserving her basic life function. Ms. Quinlan’s condition persisted in a vegetative state for an extended period of time creating the ethical dilemma of quality of life, the right to choose, the right to privacy, and the end of life decision. The Quilan family believed they had their daughter’s best interests and her own personal wishes with regard to end of life treatment. The case became complicated with regard to Karen’s long-term care from the perspective of the attending physicians, the medical community, the legal community local/state/federal case law and the catholic hospital tenants. The attending physicians believed their obligation was to preserve life but feared legal action both criminal and malpractice if they instituted end of life procedures. There was prior case law to provide guidance for legal resolution of this case. The catholic hospital in New Jersey, St. Clare’s, and Vatican stated this was going down a slippery slope to legalization of euthanasia. The case continued for 11 years and 2 months with gaining national attention. The resolution was obtained following Karen’s father being granted guardianship and ultimately made decisions on Karen’s behalf regarding future medical
A divergent set of issues and opinions involving medical care for the very seriously ill patient have dogged the bioethics community for decades. While sophisticated medical technology has allowed people to live longer, it has also caused protracted death, most often to the severe detriment of individuals and their families. Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, believes too many Americans are “dying badly.” In discussing this issue, he stated, “Families cannot imagine there could be anything worse than their loved one dying, but in fact, there are things worse.” “It’s having someone you love…suffering, dying connected to machines” (CBS News, 2014). In the not distant past, the knowledge, skills, and technology were simply not available to cure, much less prolong the deaths of gravely ill people. In addition to the ethical and moral dilemmas this presents, the costs of intensive treatment often do not realize appreciable benefits. However, cost alone should not determine when care becomes “futile” as this veers medicine into an even more dangerous ethical quagmire. While preserving life with the best possible care is always good medicine, the suffering and protracted deaths caused from the continued use of futile measures benefits no one. For this reason, the determination of futility should be a joint decision between the physician, the patient, and his or her surrogate.
Terri Schiavo collapsed on February 25, 1990 in her Florida home from an “ice tea diet” which was related to her bulimia that was the result of a potassium deficiency. Due to her heart stopping for five minutes, Terri end up with brain damage. This brain damage was permanent and made Terri go into a vegetative state for the last fifteen years of her life. The doctors stated that there was no chance that she would return to normal someday. It wouldn’t be right to keep her on life support. It would bring a lot of change in hers and the people in her life.
“From Private Ordeal to National Fight: The Case of Terri Schiavo” by Clyde Haberman (2014) he explains the dilemma of Terri Schiavo. A twenty-six year old, Terri Schiavo, mysteriously collapsed due to her brain being deprived of oxygen for to long. She was then put in a persistent vegetative state, where in the article it states “ She could breath without mechanical assistance. But doctors concluded that she was incapable of thought or emotion.” Her parents wanted her to be kept alive while her husband knew Terri wouldn’t. In the article it claims “ Florida courts, while sympathizing with the parents, consistently sided with the husband as a matter of law.” Although the courts sided with Michael, the Florida politicians felt differently. “
The purpose of this case study is to investigate and bring new insight to situations and behaviors within an organization. Case studies are learning tools which utilize social science research to identify and resolve individual and organizational challenges (K. Mariama-Arthur Esq., 2015).