The first legal acceptance of a D.N.R. request was in 1975 after the court case In re Quinlan. Karen Quinlan, a 21-year-old girl from New Jersey had been placed into a vegetative state after a night of heavy drinking and taking tranquilizers. The parents of Karen Quinlan won the case and were allowed the ordered removal of the ventilator that was keeping her alive. Years after this case, in 1991, Congress passed the Patient Self-Determination Act which mandated that hospitals honor a patient’s wishes about their healthcare.
Recent comments