Video: 'Karen Ann Quinlan NHD'

(Wednesday, March 31, 1976) — The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled today that the mechanical respirator that was keeping Karen Ann Quinlan (a young woman in a persistent vegetative state) alive might be disconnected if her attending physicians and a panel of hospital officials agreed that there was “no reasonable possibility” that she would recover.

Quinlan, who remained unconscious, died in 1985.