• U.S.

Ethics: Tragic Tug-of-War

4 minute read
Nancy Gibbs

Sharon Kowalski has always been a maverick. While her brother and sister stayed close to home — the Iron Range of northern Minnesota — Sharon struck out on her own. She worked her way through college, found a teaching job, bought a house with a friend and developed her passions for photography, cross-country skiing and motorcycling. “I used to tell her I got a new gray hair every time she took off for somewhere,” recalls her mother Della. “Kids do lots of things you don’t like, but you still love them.” In short, a willful young woman.

Now that very will is the object of a legal and ethical battle in the Minnesota courts. Five years ago, a drunk driver crashed into Sharon’s car, killing her niece and leaving Sharon brain damaged and in a coma. She regained consciousness some weeks later, but could not speak and could move only her right hand. With the help of her roommate, Karen Thompson, an associate professor of physical education at St. Cloud State University, Sharon, then & 27, struggled to learn to sip from a glass, comb her hair, communicate with a typewriter. “We learned to play again, to laugh again,” Thompson recalls.

Sharon’s parents were initially encouraged by their daughter’s progress. But when Karen announced that she and Sharon had been lovers before the accident, the Kowalskis forbade her to visit anymore and eventually moved their daughter to a nursing home 180 miles away. In 1985, after a yearlong legal battle over custody and visitation rights, the court awarded Sharon’s father full guardianship. The Kowalskis’ lawyer maintains that Thompson’s visits left Sharon depressed. Moreover, he argues that Sharon has the mind of a six-year- old and cannot express her wishes reliably. Thompson denies these claims and points to Sharon’s typewritten responses to a neutral questioner indicating her desire to return to St. Cloud and have Karen as a guardian.

Last week disabled- and gay-rights advocates in 21 cities held rallies demanding that the courts “Free Sharon Kowalski.” In Minneapolis demonstrators wore buttons proclaiming BRING SHARON HOME. Thompson’s supporters argue that as an adult, even a severely handicapped one, Sharon should be free to control her own destiny. “We are asked to let you rest in peace, Sharon,” declared Disabled Rights Activist Jaime Becker at the Minneapolis rally, “but you are not dead. You are alive! And next year you will be free.”

Gay-rights activists compared the case with that of the lover of an AIDS patient who finds himself ignored or reviled by the victim’s family. Thompson says she thinks the Kowalskis “would rather see their daughter a vegetable than a lesbian.” Thompson recalls that Sharon once told her that homosexuality was practically a “hanging offense” on the Iron Range.

For their part, the Kowalskis continue to deny their daughter is gay. Della says she once asked Sharon if she was a lesbian. “And you know what she does? She just laughs and shakes her head no.” Della also confesses how “awful painful” it is to watch Sharon “when she doesn’t have the ability to do what any of us can.”

In a last-ditch effort, Thompson has filed a motion to “restore Sharon Kowalski to capacity,” meaning to help her reach her full mental and physical potential. Two weeks ago, the court ordered that Sharon undergo a formal evaluation to see if she is capable of making decisions about her future. On the whole, the courts have not been sympathetic to Thompson’s case. Most states favor blood relatives as guardians of unmarried disabled people, explains Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Bio-Medical Ethics. “For children that’s fine, but not for adults,” says Caplan. No matter how much you love them, he argues, “when you get to be an adult, you wouldn’t necessarily pick your parents to take care of you.” Most adults, however, never have to face such a choice.

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com