Text 11699, 73 rader
Skriven 2005-04-17 15:02:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
     Kommentar till en text av Earl Croasmun
Ärende: RE: BO GRITZ
====================
EC>-> EC>There have been various other cases, before and after, on the
EC>-> EC>concept that the right to privacy encompasses a right to refuse
EC>-> EC>medical care. The Cruzan case is the most relevant to the
EC>-> EC>Schiavo case, and is interesting reading.

EC>-> I am fine with folks not wanting medical care.  That is what
EC>-> living  wills are all about.  Your comments don't address my
EC>-> point.  In this  case the state ordered her feeding and liquids
EC>-> removed.  

EC>That was the care she refused, as indicated by her frequently
EC>expressed preference that she not be sustained on a feeding tube.
EC>From Sandra Day O'Connor's written opinion in the Cruzan case:

I wish you would have quoted someone else.  I rarely, if ever, agree 
with her.


EC>"The State's artificial provision of nutrition and hydration
EC>implicates identical concerns. Artificial feeding cannot readily be
EC>distinguished from other forms of medical treatment. See, e.g.,
EC>Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, American Medical
EC>Association, AMA Ethical Opinion 2.20, Withholding or Withdrawing
EC>Life-Prolonging Medical Treatment, Current Opinions 13 (1989); The
EC>Hastings Center, Guidelines on the Termination of Life-Sustaining
EC>Treatment and the Care of the Dying 59 (1987). Whether or not the
EC>techniques used to pass food and water into the patient's alimentary
EC>tract are termed "medical treatment," it is clear they all involve
EC>some degree of intrusion and restraint. Feeding a patient by means of
EC>a nasogastric tube requires a physician to pass a long flexible tube
EC>through the patient's [497 U.S. 261, 289]    nose, throat and
EC>esophagus and into the stomach. Because of the discomfort such a tube
EC>causes, "[m]any patients need to be restrained forcibly, and their
EC>hands put into large mittens to prevent them from removing the tube."
EC>Major, The Medical Procedures for Providing Food and Water:
EC>Indications and Effects, in By No Extraordinary Means: The Choice to
EC>Forgo Life-Sustaining Food and Water 25 (J. Lynn ed. 1986). A
EC>gastrostomy tube (as was used to provide food and water to Nancy
EC>Cruzan, see ante at 266) or jejunostomy tube must be surgically 
implante
EC>d into the stomach or small intestine. Office of Technology
EC>Assessment Task Force, Life-Sustaining Technologies and the Elderly
EC>282 (1988). Requiring a competent adult to endure such procedures
EC>against her will burdens the patient's liberty, dignity, and freedom
EC>to determine the course of her own treatment. Accordingly, the
EC>liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause must protect, if it
EC>protects anything, an individual's deeply personal decision to reject
EC>medical treatment, including the artificial delivery of food and
EC>water."

EC>Being unconscious, she could no longer exercise that right herself.
EC>The husband chose not to exercise her right for her, because of the
EC>opposition of her parents.  There was a legal avenue whereby HE could
EC>have acted as her surrogate, but he chose not to do that and left it
EC>to the Court to act as her surrogate.  The court determined her
EC>wishes via a full hearing, and took the action that she had directed.

Which I have a problem with.  As long as she has family available to 
speak on her behalf, they should be allowed to do so.  The state should 
not interfere, especially with a life or death situation, especially 
ordering her death.  Again I would have been fine if the state had 
ordered Michael's wishes to be carried out.  Or if the ruling had been 
that the final disposition was his to make.  Any of those would have put 
the decision squarely where it belongs, on the family.  If Michael 
wanted the state to make the decision then he shouldn't have cared what 
the decision was and awarded custody to the state.  He did not do so.    


Jeff


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