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An Americans With Disabilities Act Critique Of Advance Directive Override Provisions, Judy A. Clausen Professor

Judy A. Clausen Professor

This Article argues many mental health advance directive statutes violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Advance directives empower people to determine care to be administered when they lack capacity to provide informed consent. General advance directives typically address end-of-life care. Mental health directives govern treatment administered during periods of incapacity caused by acute episodes. Because end-of-life decision-making is different than planning for episodic mental illness, half of the states have enacted separate mental health directive statutes. These specialized statutes often provide doctors more leeway to force treatment on a patient in contravention of a directive than do generic directive …