Case+Details


 * Case details**

=__Background__= Twenty-five year-old Nancy Cruzan was in an automobile accident in 1983. Massive injuries resulted in her falling into an unconscious state, which she was placed on life-support machine equipment and was fed through tubes. Within three-week long coma, Nancy is in a permanent condition without any response and no chance of recovery. After five years, Nancy's parents asked that their daughter's feeding tubes be disconnected, which will led to her death. At the time most of thel cost for her hospitalization was being paid by the State of Missouri, however the costs exhausted the family's resources.

=__Case__= A Missouri district court approved of the Cruzan family's request, however the director of the Missouri Department of Health took the case on appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. Missouri insisted on a clear evidence of Nancy Cruzan's desire to die. The State argued that Cruzan's casual statement before the accident that she would not want to live as a “vegetable” was not “clear and convincing evidence” that she would want to be taken off the life-support equipment. The Missouri Supreme Court, thus, refused to termination of tube feeding for the patient. Overall, life support continued through this court case and the Cruzans appealed to the Supreme Court.

The decision of the Court in //Cruzan// indicated the Court's primary concern with the preservation of life, even at the expense of “family sovereignty.”  Read more: [|Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dept. of Health (1990)] [|http://www.infoplease.com/us/supreme-court/cases/ar08.html#ixzz2U47SIayz] =__Source__ = Wagner, Kevin M. " //Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health //." In Schultz, David. //Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court //. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. //American History Online //. Facts On File, Inc. []?

ItemID=WE52&iPin=ESC0126&SingleRecord=True (accessed May 21, 2013).