Choosing Death for Nancy Cruzan

Abstract

Four articles in this issue of the Hastings Center Report concern Cruzan v. Harmon, the first right to die case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The parents of a woman in a persistent vegetative state appealed the Missouri Supreme Court's refusal to authorize them, as their daughter's legal guardians, to order an end to her tube feedings. Bopp, an attorney and the president of the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled, discusses the four issues he believes are raised by Cruzan. These are the informed refusal of treatment, the constitutional standing of guardians, the ward's best interests, and a quality of life exemption from the obligation to preserve life. Bopp concludes that the law should not authorize Cruzan's guardians to choose death for her.