Elder Law Commons^™

Providing End-Of-Life Counseling: A Narrative Inquiry, Carol Hecht, Sibyl West

Adultspan Journal

This qualitative study aimed to address the gap in the research related to end-of-life counseling by exploring the experiences of counselors working with clients at end of life. While counseling literature and education are lacking regarding end of life, many counselors will work alongside clients approaching death. The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to better understand the nuanced experiences of counselors providing end-of-life counseling and (b) to explore the supports and preparations helpful for counselors to provide end-of-life counseling. A narrative approach, using the Listening Guide (Gilligan, 2015), was employed to analyze and present the stories of three …

2016-2017 Georgia State University Law Review Symposium: Exploring The Right To Die In The U.S., Margaret Pabst Battin

Georgia State University Law Review

This transcript is a reproduction of the Keynote Presentation at the 2016–2017 Georgia State University Law Review Symposium on November 11, 2016. Margaret Battin, is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah.

Distinctive Factors Affecting The Legal Context Of End-Of-Life Medical Care For Older Persons, Marshall B. Kapp

Georgia State University Law Review

Current legal regulation of medical care for individuals approaching the end of life in the United States is predicated essentially on a factual model emanating from a series of high-profile judicial opinions concerning the rights of adults who become either permanently unconscious or are clearly going to die soon with or without aggressive attempts of curative therapy.

The need for a flexible, adaptable approach to medically treating people approaching the end of their lives, and a similar openness to possible modification of the legal framework within which treatment choices are made and implemented, are particularly important when older individuals are …

Wills, Trusts, And Estates, J. William Gray Jr., Katherine E. Ramsey

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Right To Posthumous Bodily Integrity And Implications Of Whose Right It Is, Hilary Young

Marquette Elder's Advisor

The law protects posthumous bodily integrity by allowing people to decide what will happen to their bodies after death. This article asks whose rights these laws intend to protect: the rights-holders could consist only of living individuals whose bodies will become the corpses at issue or could include the dead themselves. Whether rights to posthumous bodily integrity belong only to the living or survive death leads to three types of insight. First, the reasons for protecting posthumous bodily integrity are different depending on who the rights-bearers are. Second, to the extent that some laws are more consistent with an approach …

Assisted Suicide: A Tough Pill To Swallow, Mary Margaret Penrose

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial Views: Choosing And Death, Alison Mcchrystal Barnes

Marquette Elder's Advisor

This article examines whether death can be handled with dignity. By looking at various world views surrounding questions about ending one's life, the author discusses when the benefits may be diminished or futile.

Make Sure Your Estate Plan Includes The Finale!, Patricia A. Elder

Marquette Elder's Advisor

This article explores the need to plan and prepare for the costs and arrangements associated with a funeral. Preplanning and pre-funding a funeral relieves an individual's survivors of a number of responsibilities during a difficult time period. Preparing for one's own funeral can also relieve an individual's concerns by allowing the individual to feel that everything is taken care of

A Natural Right To Die: Twenty-Three Centuries Of Debate, Beth Eisendrath

Marquette Elder's Advisor

No abstract provided.

Post-Mortem Ira Planning For The Surviving Spouse, Greg Reymann

Marquette Elder's Advisor

In 2002, the IRS issued simplified regulations governing required minimum distributions (RMDs) for IRAs. The new rules make elections at the time of one's required beginning date obsolete, and shift the deadline for many of the planning options to a specified date following the IRA owner's death. This article discusses those planning options faced by the surviving spouse.

Guardianship Actions Against Individuals Who Have Selected An Agent As Power Of Attorney: When Should The Court Say "No?", Linda S. Ershow-Levenberg

Marquette Elder's Advisor

This article discusses the need for guardianship for presumably incapacitated individuals who already have designated someone to have their power of attorney or to be their healthcare representative. Noting that the privacy and liberty of an individual will be affected by appointing a guardian, the author proposes that guardians not be unnecessarily appointed when currently in-place representatives already fulfill needed services.

Basis In Inheritance After Egtrra, Sharon Kovacs Gruer

Marquette Elder's Advisor

This final section elaborates on establishing carryover basis in situations involving inheritances, focusing on changes established under EGTRRA (the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001). Included are discussions of operating loss carryover, unused built-in losses, qualified spousal property, and property transferred prior to or after death. Marital planning, including QTIP trusts and allocation of basis issues, are explored.

St. Ritas And Lost Causes: Improving Nursing Home Emergency Preparedness , Robert A. Mead

Marquette Elder's Advisor

This timely article explores the legally required emergency preparedness (or lack of it) at St. Rita's Nursing Home in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when residents were not evacuated as was mandated. The operators were charged with thirty-four counts of negligent homicide. Issues studied include the dangers of evacuating versus not evacuating, varying emergency preparedness regulations and their enforcement, and the failure of legislatures to strengthen such regulations

The Death Of The State Death Tax Credit: Can It Be Resuscitated?, Patrick R. Thiessen

Marquette Elder's Advisor

This article provides an overview of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001's (EGTRRA's) estate tax reforms and how they have impacted the states. Additionally, this article examines the lessons that might be learned from the history of the state death tax credit, how the states developed their state estate taxation schemes based on the state death tax credit, the congressional decision to repeal the state death tax credit and the states' limited responses, two states' differing responses to EGTRRA, and the study of the possible impact of the evolving state estate taxation landscape on wealthy retirees …

"Death With Dignity": A Recipe For Elder Abuse And Homicide (Albeit Not By Name), Margaret K. Dore

Marquette Elder's Advisor

Death with Dignity Acts in Oregon and Washington authorize physicians to write life-ending prescriptions for their patients. This article addresses various problems with the Acts, including the wording about who may administer the lethal drug and the fact that both Acts lack a consent requirement when the lethal dose is administered. This article also addresses counter arguments offered by proponents of the Acts.

Voluntarily Stopping Eating And Drinking: A Legal Treatment Option At The End Of Life, Thaddeus Mason Pope

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the growing sophistication of palliative medicine, many individuals continue to suffer at the end of life. It is well settled that patients, suffering or not, have the right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment (such as dialysis or a ventilator) through contemporaneous instructions, through an advance directive, or through a substitute decision maker. But many ill patients, including a large and growing population with advanced dementia who are not dependent upon life-sustaining medical treatment, do not have this option. They have the same rights, but there is simply no life-sustaining medical treatment to refuse.

Nevertheless, these patients have another right, …

Changing Attitudes Toward Euthanasia, Alice V. Mehling

IUSTITIA

Death is a very individual matter which does not readily lend itself to collective decision. Medical ethicists frequently conclude that to allow a person to die from malice is more reprehensible than to help a person to die from mercy. The most striking change which is taking place in consideration of the problem is recognition of the need to reinforce the patient's right to decide on the course of medical treatment.

A New York Times editorial of February 3, 1903 condemned the practice of active euthanasia by comparing it to "practices of savages in all parts of the world". Seventy …