Nancy Cruzan Case Study

On January 11, 1983, Nancy Cruzan was in a car accident. When Nancy Cruzan was in the hospital, she was said to be in persistent vegetative state because of the brain damage that she had, she suffered from during oxygen deprivation. Nancy did show improvements but they were very minor. But it was clear to the doctors and to her father Joe Cruzan that his daughter's body was still breathing but she was virtually dead. Nancy's parents were her legal guardians so under Missouri laws they were required to provide for the wards care, treatment, support, maintenance, etc. Also as guardians Joes Cruzan had the authority to remove her ventilator and let her die, but she continued to breathe which was unexpected. Which then lead to the next issue which was removing the feeding tube which he could not do, because Nancy did not have a written will stating to remove it if this such thing was to happen.

In this case it was all about Nancy's parents fighting for the right to allow their child to die and finally be at peace because they knew her better than anybody else and they knew that she did not want to live like that. During the fight to do so the main issue was how does one know what the patient wants if they are unable to tell anybody, and if they did not have a written will. Nancys quality of life would be very poor because she could not do anything on her own, her parents would have to take care of her for the rest of her life. Why burden them with taking care of a brain dead human being? Also in addition her parents would have to continue to pay medical bills that I'm sure they could not afford.

The quality of life is a very important issue in this case. Her parents knew that this was not how Nancy would want to be in this world, and they also did not like seeing her like this every day. What gives anybody the right to say that you can't remove the feeding tube from your own child even when the doctors see little to no improvement in the patient? I believe that this case opened a lot of peoples eyes when it comes to these very tragic situations. What if it was your child, would you let them sit there and be in pain and suffer every day, not at all.