Doctor-Assisted Suicide Case Study

The enigmatic Hamlet once said, “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” In Hamlet’s soliloquy, he ponders on the idea of suicide and whether it would be a practical solution to all his problems, in other words was it better to live or to die? A situation parallel to Hamlet is the landmark case Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, where it discusses how the Constitution protects a person’s right to die and how states can regulate it. During 1983, a woman by the name of Nancy Cruzan laid in an eternal vegetative state after being involved in an auto collision, where she sustained severe injuries and was put on life-sustaining equipment. In addition, after five years with no signs of recovery, the Cruzan family asked to terminate her from the tubes that were feeding her, but were denied by the staff, without approval of the court. Likewise, in relations to Cruzan,

The Cruzan family should have the right to withdraw life support from their daughter for many reasons.

Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health was the first case heard on the subject of the legal interests of patients in critical conditions. In 1983, Nancy Cruzan, a 25-year-old woman, got involved in a car accident and suffered traumatic injuries to the brain. Following that event, she was in a coma for three weeks then was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. Her parents request the hospital to cease the supply and according to Legal Information Institute, “hospital employees refused, without court approval, to honor the request of Cruzan’s parents, co-petitioners here, to terminate her artificial nutrition and hydration,