A cycle of terms implicit in the idea of medicine: Karen Ann Quinlan as a rhetorical icon and the transvaluation of the ethics of euthanasia.

In this article, I examine competing characterizations of Karen Ann Quinlan's life and the role these characterizations played in shaping public attitudes toward euthanasia and medicine in America. I discuss the reasons Quinlan's coma brought forth radically contrasted narratives about who she was by applying Burke's (1961) cycle of terms implicit in the idea of order. I compare the manner in which traditional life-sanctity advocates spoke about her with the narratives and counternarratives offered by the family and the social innovators who would challenge those traditionalist assumptions.