Right To Die Essay

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In John A. Robertson's essay, "Cruzan: No Rights Violated," he argues

that the decision made by the Missouri Supreme Court to deny Nancy Beth Cruzan's

parents' request to have their daughter's artificial nutrition and hydration

tube removed was not a violation of Nancy Beth Cruzan's right to refuse

treatment because she had not personally refused treatment. Robertson also

claims that keeping Cruzan alive with this particular medical treatment does not

alienate her constitutional rights, or her parents'. Robertson states that,

" A permanently vegetative patient does not have interests that can be

harmed," simply because he/she cannot feel pain and doesn't know his/her

present condition. Robertson then goes on to say that simply assuming that one

would decline treatment in that situation because of his/her prior beliefs is

not enough evidence to maintain that the directive was, in fact, released by the

said person, and to relieve their self from a state law that orders such a

treatment, the person must have released a directive against that particular

treatment. If one were to argue that an incompetent patient has the right to

have their medical treatment decided by another person on the presumption that

it follows with the patient's previous beliefs, Robertson would declare that the

patient is much different than they were before and does not reserve a

constitutional right to be managed in the same way they would have been. In

placing the right to decide Nancy's treatment in her parents' hands, her parents

would be acting in their own interests according to Robertson, and in choosing

to stop medical treatment of their daughter, they would be denying their child

medical care deemed necessary by the state, which is illegal. With this in mind,

Robertson says that the Supreme Court should not extend a family's privacy to

include the refusal of necessary treatment when the [above] treatment is not

causing harm to the child. Next Robertson says that if a person wants to refuse

treatment while incompetent, it is their obligation to make a directive before

becoming incompetent in order to refuse treatment on the principle of that

particular directive, and that requiring this is "not an undue burden on

persons who wish to issue directives against medical care when

incompetent." If "clear evidence" does not exist in a past

directive, Robertson says that providing the treatment does not alienate a

person's right to regulate his/her own care because of the lack of evidence.

Robertson says that people who criticize the rulings of the Cruzan case tend to

find the Missouri Supreme Court's decision to not allow Nancy's parents to have

their daughter's nutrition and hydration line removed unconstitutional because

they overlook the distinctions that he makes in this essay. By looking at these

distinctions, Robertson believes that people will see that treating Nancy Cruzan

despite her parents' dissent does not violate anyone's constitutional rights.

Lastly, Robertson states "Missouri, like most other states, should permit

the family to stop Nancy's treatment and end their own ordeal. But Missouri

violates no constitutional rights in choosing otherwise." The part about

Robertson's argument that I disagree with the most is when he says that keeping

Nancy connected to the feeding tube does not violate her parents' constitutional

rights. According to the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United

States, "one has the freedom to petition the government for a redress of

grievances" and the Fourteenth Amendment states that, " The stated

cannot deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of

law, nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the

laws." With these in mind, it is clear that leaving Nancy connected to the

tube is violating her parents' rights. Her parents are going through plenty of

grievances watching their daughter lay there and waste away to nothing because

she did not specifically say in writing that she did not want to be attached to

a feeding and hydrating line if she ever becomes brain dead. That is inflicting

pain and sorrow on her parents and is violating their pursuit of happiness.

According to the First Amendment, the Cruzan family has the right to petition

the government to have those grievances removed. Robertson says that this is not

right because the family will be doing it in their own interests because the

feeding tube is not harming Nancy in any way. I don't believe that because a

mother has a right to tell their child to not climb a high tree because they

could get hurt. It is not necessarily hurting them, but the parent acts in

his/her own interest because they are trying to protect their own child of any

possible harm. Removing the feeding tube would eliminate any further harm to

their child. Nancy would be able to rest in peace. Robertson claims that a

person should create specific directives so that if a situation were to happen

to you, you could keep from having something against your wishes to be

performed, and that making these directives is no undue...

Robertson, John A. "Cruzan: No Rights Violated," Contemporary
Issues in Bioethics, Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1999. Gostin, Lawrence O.
"Life and Death Choices after Cruzan," Contemporary Issues in
Bioethics, Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1999 You should cite this paper as follows:

MLA Style
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