A Mother and Father Reflect on Their Daughter's Right to Die

Joseph and Julia Quinlan. They are the parents of Karen Ann Quinlan. It's been twenty years since the New Jersey State Supreme Court issued it's landmark decision (March 31, 1976) allowing their comatose daughter to be removed from a ventilator. She then lived nine more years. The Quinlans wrote about Karen in the book "Karen Ann: The Quinlans Tell Their Story," (Doubleday-1977). In 1980 they used the proceeds from the book to open the Karen Ann Quinlan Center of Hope Hospice in Newton, New Jersey. (201)383-0115

Shortly after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2019, architect Brian Ameche, then in his mid-60s, told his wife, novelist Amy Bloom, that he wanted to end life on his own terms, before the disease robbed him of everything.

Science writer Dick Teresi and transplant surgeon Richard Freeman discuss the ethics of transplant surgery and how doctors determine the point between life and death.