Cruzan V. Missouri Supreme Court Case Study

In January of 1983 Nancy Beth Cruzan lost control of her car on a icy Missouri road. This accident left Nancy brain damaged and was left in a “permanent vegetative state”. She could breath on her own but other than that there was nothing she could do on her own and she showed no signs of thinking capabilities. The doctors put a feeding tube into her stomach about month after the accident. In 1988 Nancy’s parents didn’t believe that their daughter would ever wake up and recover from the vegetative state and that she wouldn’t want to live this way based on previous statements so the asked that the tube be removed.The medical staff refused to do so without a court approval. The trial court decided that the statements Nancy made indicated that she wouldn’t want to continue living in the vegetative state that she was in, and that the parents wishes should be honored. However the State of Missouri appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court where they changed the lower court’s ruling and decided that she should remain on her life-sustaining treatment. A large amount of the members of the Missouri Supreme Court believed that Nancy’s comments about her well being in the future were made in more of a casual way ad not serious. Then the Cruzan’s …show more content…
Director, Missouri Department Of Health 1990,” Encyclopedia (2001) states the case along with Majority and the Dissenting opinion. This article states my case, which is of course part of the government. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. wrote “Dying is personal… For many, the thought of an ignoble end [not noble] steeped in decay, is abhorrent [horrible]..., no state interests could outweigh the rights of an individual in Nancy Cruzan’s position. Whatever a state’s possible interest in mandating [requiring] life-support treatment under other circumstances, there is no good to be obtained here by Missouri’s insistence that Nancy Cruzan remain on life-support systems if it is indeed her wish not to do