Serendipity Talk: Rules for Dying 50 Years After Quinlan: Putting Patients and Families First

Robert S. Olick, Rules for Dying 50 Years After Quinlan: Putting Patients and Families First
Monday, March 9
3:30-5:00 PM
Online

Today we take it for granted that we have a right to refuse unwanted treatment near the end of life and to write advance directives to assert control over the dying process. Yet this right was first recognized only 50 years ago in the landmark case of Karen Ann Quinlan. In Quinlan the New Jersey Supreme Court held for the first time that patients have a constitutional right to refuse unwanted medical interventions, including life-sustaining treatment, and that family members may exercise this right on behalf of incompetent loved ones. Quinlan’s principles and approach to putting patients and families first became the model for the nation. As court after court adopted the core principles of Quinlan, and state legislatures nationally enacted advance directive laws, the end-of-life consensus took hold. Beginning with the story of the landmark Quinlan case, this talk presents the core principles of the legal, ethical and societal end-of-life consensus and the right to pursue death with dignity. I discuss the status, prospects, and challenges of the right to choose the time and manner of our own death.

Robert S. Olick, JD, PhD (philosophy and bioethics) taught medical ethics for more than two decades as a member of the faculties of SUNY Upstate Medical University and the University of Iowa Colleges of Medicine and Law. He is known for his scholarship and teaching on decisions near the end of life and advance directives for health care. Dr. Olick has taught a medical ethics class at OLLI since 2022. His approach to bioethics is interdisciplinary, drawing on training and experience in law, bioethics and public policy.

No registration is required. The Zoom link will be e-mailed to all those subscribed to the OLLI newsletter the morning of the talk. If you do not receive the newsletter and would like to attend, please join the email list at https://www.olli-dc.org/join_email_list.