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Some people who share the Quintans' view have signed documents called "living wills" directing their families and physicians not to use extraordinary methods to keep them alive if they become seriously ill and have no reasonable hope of recovery. But a great many others admit that, when faced with death, the natural reaction is to cling to life. Robert Cleath, 47, a speech professor at California Polytechnic State University and a part-time Presbyterian minister in Cambria, Calif., has watched in anguish while his son Rob, now 23, has vegetated in a coma since an auto accident five years ago. Even though Rob shows no signs of recovery, his father has no intention of letting him die. "Why? Because I love my son. God is the author of life and no one has the right to take a life, not even his own."
The law provides little guidance in such cases. The courts have yet to establish that there is any constitutional "right to die." The New Jersey Supreme Court has held that a member of Jehovah's Witnesses did not have the right to refuse a blood transfusion on religious grounds. On several occasions, courts have named doctors as guardians in order to assure that children will be given treatments that parents, for whatever personal or religious reasons, are unwilling to provide.
Nor have the courts always acted consistently in other, related cases. Though euthanasia, or deliberate mercy killing, is still regarded as murder, the courts have generally dealt lightly with those accused of it. Juries in such cases have shown a reluctance to convict; even when they do, judges have usually been lenient in their sentencing. In a 1968 case in Illinois, for example, a 69-year-old man admitted to suffocating his crippled wife and then attempting to take his own life. The judge, on his own initiative, withdrew the man's guilty plea, entered a judgment of not guilty and sent him home with his son.
There is also a growing feeling that people do have the right to refuse treatment that might painfully prolong lives. A Florida court ruled in 1971 that a terminally ill woman had a right to decline treatment that would, at best, provide her with a short, painful extension of her life. Said the court: "It is not in the interest of justice for this court of equity to order that she be kept alive against her will."
In the midst of all these uncertainties, Judge Muir gave only the barest hint of how he would rule. Asked by the Quinlans' attorney to visit Karen in the hospital, Muir declined. "I don't think it's appropriate for me to go see her," he replied. "I'm an ordinary human being with ordinary thoughts and ordinary emotions. My position in this case is to decide on the basis of the evidence presented. Emotion is an aspect that I cannot decide a case on."