Court and the End of Life - The Right To Privacy: Karen Ann Quinlan, Substituted Judgment, Competent Patients' Wishes, The Subjective, Limited-objective, And Pure-objective Tests

Traditionally, death was defined as the total cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions. In 1968 the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School defined irreversible coma, or brain death, as a new criterion for death. As medical technology has become increasingly able to maintain patients who would otherwise die from severe injuries or illnesses, the debate about defining death, and about whether patients have the right to choose to die, has intensified.