(7 of 7)
If Muir decides to grant the Quinlans' request, and if he is upheld on appeal, he will have set a precedent that could have enormous implications. For although the Quinlan case concerns mainly the maintenance of life by artificial means, it could, if carried to its logical conclusion, be applied in state hospitals, institutions for the mentally retarded and for the elderly. Such places currently house thousands of people who have neither hope nor prospects of a life that even approaches normality. A decision to remove Karen's life-support system could prompt new suits by parents seeking to end the agony of incurably afflicted children, or by children seeking to shorten the suffering of aged and terminally ill parents. If Muir insists that Karen must be maintained on the machine, the impact of his decision will be equally important. Medical resources are in short supply at even the best-equipped of hospitals, and doctors, whether they admit it or not, must perform some sort of triage, or sorting, deciding which patients can be helped and which cannot. If they are forbidden to make any decision to shorten a life, they may be forced to maintain with machines many patients who have no hope of true survival.
The outcome of the case of Karen Quinlan will thus be historic. However he decides, Judge Muir will not merely be interpreting the law. He will be making it.