Joseph Fennelly, a Morris County physician who became a key figure in the "right-to-die" movement that gained prominence in the legal battle over the fate of Karen Ann Quinlan, has died, according to his family.

Fennelly, a retired doctor of internal medicine from Madison, died Tuesday at the age of 93 after a long illness. He practiced medicine for more than 55 years and "provided deeply compassionate care via house calls" for decades before retiring from Morristown Medical Center in 2019, his son Glenn said.

Fennelly, who was born in Queens and raised in Long Branch, is survived by his wife of 65 years, Lucille; his children Deborah, Glenn, Bryan and Jeffrey; four grandchildren and three siblings, along with many nieces and nephews, according to an obituary provided by the family.

Fennelly's most high-profile patient was Quinlan, who grew up in Roxbury Township in Morris County. The 21-year old fell into a permanent vegetative state in 1975 after attending a party in Byram, in Sussex County, where she was seen drinking and taking pills. Her story developed into a landmark case when doctors, citing religious and legal reasons, refused her parents' request to remove her from her respirator once her condition was deemed irreversible.

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1976 in favor of her parents, establishing a legal right to refuse extraordinary medical care that was later adopted in other states and spurred legislation in Congress and across the country.

Fennelly led a team of physicians willing to treat Quinlan as a "chronic care patient" without using "extraordinary" measures to keep her alive, according to a 1976 New York Times article. Fennelly told the newspaper that his team "would maintain the usual standards of nutrition and do all possible to alleviate pain and suffering."

Quinlan's parents had sued to remove her breathing tube, which they said was causing her pain, but allowed other care to continue. Their daughter remained in a coma for 10 years before she died of respiratory failure on June 11, 1985.

Fennelly's experience treating Quinlan led to his involvement in bioethics, the study of ethical, social and legal issues surrounding medical care. He created and served on the bioethics committee at Morristown Medical Center and was chairman of the same committee with the Medical Society of New Jersey.

Fennelly also became an advocate for living wills, which outline specific types of medical care a person wishes to receive if they are unable to make decisions because of a terminal or incapacitating illness.

"Health care providers must understand that people's living wills are prompted by anxiety that they won't get the kind of care that is appropriate to their needs, that they will be denied their natural life cycle," Fennelly said in a 1986 New York Times article. "We feel that when there is a good dialogue between the health providers, the patients and the families, the advance directives will add to the appropriateness of the care given."

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that all adults have the right to choose or refuse treatment, to make advance directives and to appoint a surrogate to make medical decisions on their behalf. The ruling came in the case of Nancy Cruzan, a Missouri woman who never regained full consciousness after a 1983 car accident. Her family successfully argued for the removal of her feeding tube, causing her death on Dec. 26, 1990.

Fennelly was also an influential member of the New Jersey Legislature’s Commission on Legal and Ethical problems in the delivery of healthcare, which helped established the state's Brain Death Statutes and laws on advanced directives, according to his obituary.

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Fennelly and his wife were also lifelong aficionados and patrons of New York City’s Metropolitan Opera and Philharmonic Symphony. The couple often went to two performances on Saturdays, attending their last one together on March 14, 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most live events, according to the obituary.

Fennelly's honors include lifetime achievement awards in 2015 from both the Medical Society of New Jersey and Morristown Medical Center. He was a faculty member at New York Medical College, where he created a bioethics course, as well as at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Mount Sinai Medical School and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Visitation for Fennelly will be held from 4-8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 19, at Burroughs, Kohr and Dangler Funeral Home in Madison. The funeral Mass will take place at 10 a.m. the following day at St. Vincent Martyr Church in the borough.

In lieu of flowers, the family requested donations be made to the Palliative and Hospice Unit at Morristown Medical Center, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Academy of Vocal Arts of Bucks County and Philadelphia, and the Cheshire Home in Florham Park, which treats young people with spinal cord injuries and neurological impairments.

Correction: In a previous version of this story, Karen Ann Quinlan's name was misspelled in a headline.

Kyle Morel is a local reporter covering Morris and Sussex counties.

Email: kmorel@njherald.com; Twitter: @KMorelNJH