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Legal implications for failure to comply with advance directives: an examination of the incompetent individual's right to refuse life‐sustaining medical treatment
Author(s) -
Perry Sherynn J.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.485
Subject(s) - directive , legislation , compliance (psychology) , law , political science , psychology , public relations , social psychology , computer science , programming language
Life‐sustaining medical technology in the past century has created a growing body of case law and legislation recognizing the incompetent individual's right to make his or her own end‐of‐life decisions. This article focuses on California's leadership in the area of these specific end‐of‐life issues: specifically, exploring the right of an incompetent individual to refuse life‐sustaining medical treatment. The article examines advance directives along with various judicial decision‐making standards for incompetent individuals and explores the sociobehavioral and legal rationale for compliance with incompetent individual's rights to make end‐of‐life decisions. Finally this article concludes (i) that advance directives allow competent individuals to state the medical treatment they would prefer in the event they should later become incompetent and (ii) that when advance directives are properly executed in a detailed manner, under laws currently in effect in some jurisdictions, the preferences stated in the directive bind health care providers. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.