Cruzan V. Missouri Court Case Study

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In the year 1983, Nancy Beth Cruzan was involved in an automobile accident in the state of Missouri. She was taken to a hospital and declared to be in a “persistent vegetative state”. Due to this she was being kept artificially alive on machines and after a while her parents requested that she be taken off life support. The hospital, not having any real indication that she wanted to be taken off the machines, refused her parents request (“Cruzan by Cruzan” 1). To counter this, they parents filed a claim to remove the feeding tube from their daughter in the 29th Judicial Circuit Court for Jasper County, Missouri (“29th Judicial” 1) who sided with the family. However, the hospital was state run and so appealed to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District in Springfield (“Missouri Court of Appeals” 1, 3) who overturned the previous decision. The Cruzans were not happy with the overturning of the decision and appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court who …show more content…
Director, Missouri Department of Health”).
According to the Oregon state government website on the matter, in 1997, a whole 8 years later, the state of Oregon passed the Death With Dignity Act. This law allows people, who are residents of Oregon and are terminally ill, are given the choice to, and it is a choice, to request a lethal amount of medications that be self-administered after a physician or doctor prescribes them for that purpose.
This connects with Cruzan v. Missouri Department of Health in a very important way. This is because it deals with the same issue and patients’ rights to request terminal, end-of-life
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Cruzan V. Missouri Supreme Court Case Study

On January 11, 1983, Nancy Cruzan was a 25 year old was driving at night when she lost control of her vehicle. When she lost control, she was launched outside of her vehicle into a ditch filled with water on the side of the road. When an ambulance arrived, she had no vital signs but they managed to revive her. The incident left her in a in a coma and they diagnosed her as being in a “persistent vegetative state.” For her to stay alive, they had to keep her attached to a feeding tube. Cruzan’s parents…

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