This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

Jobes is thirty-one years old. She is the daughter of Robert and Eleanor Laird, both of whom are living. She has three living siblings. She married P on July 31, 1976. She was employed as a certified laboratory technologist and was four and one-half months pregnant with her first child. On March 11, 1980, she sustained injuries in an automobile accident. Her fetus had been killed. During the removal of the dead fetus, she sustained a severe loss of oxygen and blood flow to her brain. She suffered massive and irreversible damage to the part of her brain that controls thought and movement. She has never regained consciousness. She was transferred to D. She is unable to speak or make any kind of noise. A towel is kept under her chin to catch the secretions that drip from her mouth. She has a tracheostomy, which is covered with a plastic shield to which a flexible tube is attached. An air compressor must humidify the air moving into her throat through this tube to prevent it from becoming clogged with mucous. She is incontinent and requires a catheter to continuously irrigate her bladder. She receives routine enemas for bowel evacuation. She has chronic urinary tract infections. She is given antibiotics when necessary, as well as medication intended to prevent seizures. Her muscles have atrophied and her limbs are rigidly contracted. Her extremities cannot be moved. Her closely clenched fingers are padded to prevent the skin between them from deteriorating. She cannot swallow. Jobes has been fed through a j-tube inserted -- through a hole cut into her abdominal cavity -- into the jejunum of her small intestine. Water and a synthetic, pre-digested formula of various amino acids are pumped through the j-tube continuously. She has been to the Hospital 3 times because of complications with the j-tube. Numerous doctors have verified the hopelessness of her circumstances. Numerous doctors also believed she was not in a vegetative state. All of the medical experts retained by P, the guardian, and the Public Advocate were unsuccessful in eliciting volitional responses from Jobes. They observed the kind of movements reported by Drs. Victor and Ropper, but concluded that they were startle reflexes and random movements rather than evidence of any cognitive awareness. Nurses at D testified that Jobes had cognitive awareness. Other nurses and nurses' aides testified that they had not observed any cognitive awareness and that she gave no response to their verbal commands. Jobes' closest friends, her cousin, her clergyman, and P offered testimony that was intended to prove that if she were competent, Jobes would refuse to be sustained by the j-tube. Jobes specifically stated that she would not want to be kept alive on a respirator. Jobes' closest friends, her cousin, her clergyman, and P offered testimony that was intended to prove that if she were competent, Jobes would refuse to be sustained by the j-tube. Deborah Holdsworth, a registered nurse and life-long friend of Jobes, recalled a conversation in 1971 in which Jobes stated that if she were ever crippled like the children with multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy that Ms. Holdsworth cared for, she would not want to live. Jobes relayed to her she would not want to live like Karen Quinlan did after the removal of her respirator. Another friend of Jobes' since childhood, Donna DeChristofaro, and Jobes talked about Karen Quinlan who hadn't died when they removed the respirator; that that wasn't living, it was existing; that she had wished that God had taken her then. Jobes' first cousin, Dr. Cleve Laird, recalled a discussion he had with her in the summer of 1975 about a victim of an automobile accident who was being kept alive by a cardiac stimulator: She said that she wouldn't want those measures taken in her case and that she certainly wouldn't want to live that way and how she should carry a card for such a contingency. Dr. Laird testified that his wife had sent a card to Jobes and that Jobes thanked them for it in a note she sent them at Christmas. The card has not been found. P testified that if Jobes were competent, she would 'definitely' choose to terminate the artificial feeding that sustains her in her present condition. He generally recalled her having stated many times that she would not want to be kept alive under Karen Quinlan's circumstances. The Presbyterian Church leaves decisions like the one at issue here to the individual conscience. Jobes has been a resident patient at the Lincoln Park Nursing Home for the past 5 years. In May 1985 P and her parents requested that the nursing home withdraw the jejunostomy tube (hereinafter j-tube), which provides her with nutrition and hydration. D refused on moral grounds. P asked the Chancery Division to 'authorize and order' the withdrawal of the j-tube. P claimed that Jobes was in a persistent vegetative state and that therefore he and her family had concluded that she would choose to terminate artificial feeding and that it was in her best interests to do so. The trial court appointed Richard Kahn, Esq., as guardian ad litem. Kahn filed a report in favor of P's decision. D then moved for the appointment of a 'life advocate.' The trial court denied that motion. The Public Advocate intervened. The judge visited Jobes at the nursing home and filed an observation report. The court found that Phad proved by clear and convincing evidence that his wife is in a persistent vegetative state with no prospect of improvement, and that, if competent, she would not want to be sustained by the j-tube under her present circumstances. The court authorized the removal of the j-tube under the supervision of a licensed physician. It also held that D was entitled to refuse to participate in the withdrawal of the j-tube and could keep Jobes connected to it until she was transferred out of that facility.

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