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Full-Text Articles in Law
Compliance With Advance Directives: Wrongful Living And Tort Law Incentives, Holly Fernandez Lynch, Michele Mathes, Nadia N. Sawicki
Compliance With Advance Directives: Wrongful Living And Tort Law Incentives, Holly Fernandez Lynch, Michele Mathes, Nadia N. Sawicki
All Faculty Scholarship
Modern ethical and legal norms generally require that deference be accorded to patients' decisions regarding treatment, including decisions to refuse life-sustaining care, even when patients no longer have the capacity to communicate those decisions to their physicians. Advance directives were developed as a means by which a patient's autonomy regarding medical care might survive such incapacity. Unfortunately, preserving patient autonomy at the end of life has been no simple task. First, it has been difficult to persuade patients to prepare for incapacity by making their wishes known. Second, even when they have done so, there is a distinct possibility that …
The Right To Die With Dignity: An Argument In Ethics And Law, Raphael Cohen-Almagor
The Right To Die With Dignity: An Argument In Ethics And Law, Raphael Cohen-Almagor
raphael cohen-almagor
We face a dilemma. Suppose there is a person who suffers great pain and wants to die. Those who believe life is intrinsically valuable object to taking life and to taking any action on the person’s desire because the end of life is something granted only to nature, and is not a decision that is incumbent on human beings. However, this objection ignores the autonomy of the agent’s concerns, because she might say: “I would like to die. I would rather die in these circumstances because I don’t feel that I am adding anything just by surviving.” Can life be …