maleficent

Showing my age and location here, because I remember it so well... In the 70s in New Jersey, there was a young woman who did something incredibly stupid (mixed booze and valium) and lapsed into a coma. After much time, she ended up in a prolonged vegetative state with no hope at all for recovery. She was attached to a respirator to help her breathe.

Because she was an adult, in the eyes of the law, her parents had to fight all the way to the Supreme Court of the state of new jersey in order to have the respirator turned off, because they beleived taht is what their daughter wanted. Her father was finally given custody and finally they were allowed to turn off the respirator.

The truly strange part, is that once they turned off the respirator, the person they said would never breathe on her own, breathed on her own, in a small nursing home in New Jersey for the next 10 years.

The woman in question was (and I won't make jokes about the New Jersey State Vegetable) Karen Ann Quinlan, and what her parents went thru was to bring attention to people the right to die with dignity.

In the case of Terri Schiavo, her life now isn't dignified, she has no life. Her parents could take a lesson from the Quinlan's and let their daughter go. She left long ago anyhow.

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