Реферат: The Business Of Dying Essay Research Paper

The Business Of Dying Essay, Research Paper

The Business of Dying

Prepared for: Peru State College

Business Administration 251: Legal environment and Contract Law

Submitted to:

Victor F. La Puma

April 5, 1998

By

Lisa M. Holmes

403 Main Street, box 331

Johnson, NE 68378

402-868-4945 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1Die and Pay Taxes 1

CHAPTER 2The Concept and the Cases3

CHAPTER 3

Legislation and the Health Care Stand9

CHAPTER 4Death a matter Ethics, Religion or Legal Realism 13

CHAPTER 1

Die and Pay Taxes

My father once told me the only things we have no choice but to do in this life are to die and pay taxes. Although he may have been correct, we can probably make some educated choices to affect the result of both. Due to the evolution of our society and advances of modern day medicine, our choices in either of these obligations may be vast but also limited to our knowledge and the planning we engage.

Do we have choices? Henry David Thoreau felt that the taxes imposed by a war that he was apposed to were unjust. He refused to pay the taxes and was imprisoned. Thoreau would still have the right today to protest the tax under the philosophy of Natural Law. He would still more then likely be imprisoned if he refused to pay his taxes, but what of his right to die? Without an advanced directive or some sort of living will in place, in our so called advanced culture, Thoreau might not have a choice in his own death. He could easily be kept imprisoned by being kept alive and at the mercy of his keepers.

Under today’s legal society the health care provider may exercise rights as our keeper. Many of us may assume those health care providers, assured that the law permits them to do so, will respect the decisions of their patients, or of their patients appointed decision maker. As a result, most advanced directive laws impose no adverse consequences on providers who refuse to follow the instructions of an advance directive. Some may even hold that noncompliance is legally acceptable. In contrary, in recent years health care providers who apparently impose medical treatment and ignore the instructions in an advance directive may indeed be guilty of medical battery.

There are different types of advance directives. The two most common are living wills and durable powers of attorney for health care. For example, your living will may say that you do not want your life prolonged with machines or that you do not want tube feedings or an Intravenous (IV) to provide you with fluids. However, your living will could also say that you want everything possible done to keep you alive. It is important that it be a statement of your intent. A durable power of attorney for health care is a document you sign in which you appoint an agent to make your medical decisions for you if you aren’t able to make them due to incapacitation. Nebraska law recognizes both living wills and durable powers of attorney for health care. In order to sign a living will or a durable power of attorney for health care, you must be at least 19 years of age and competent. If younger than 19, you must be either married or divorced and competent.

CHAPTER 2

The Concept and the Cases

History maintains that the concept of our right to die has interested philosophers since the time of the Greeks. However, it has only recently become a pertinent social concern. By the 1950’s, advances in medical technology had allowed the terminally ill and permanently unconscious patients to be kept alive dramatically longer than ever before. In the past these individuals died quickly from complications or from an inability to eat and drink. The new-found capability of medical science brought difficult right-to-die issues into the lives of many dying patients, where the course of nature once seemed unalterable. Doctors, patients, and family suddenly needed to decide when a life should end. The terms “living will” and “power of attorney” were introduced into our vocabulary to assure that our rights in death were protected. Although Americans may feel strongly about their rights in death, the statistics show that we still don’t want to address these rights. According to a 1991 Gallup poll, 75 percent of all Americans approve of living wills. Conversely, the poll also showed that only approximately 20 percent of all Americans presently have a living will or medical power of attorney. Society is still shaping an opinion on the controversy. The events and unfortunate circumstances of several individuals of our decade have defined the rapidly evolving era of social, ethical and legal controversy surrounding the right to die.

The Karen Ann Quinlan case was one of the first ethical dilemmas that emerged in the era of modern medicine. Quinlan suffered a respiratory arrest in 1975 and was diagnosed with severe brain damage as the result of anoxia. She was unable to breathe without a mechanical respirator and unable to eat without a feeding tube. Her family undertook a prolonged legal battle to argue that their daughter would not have wanted to be kept alive in this condition. Finally, the New Jersey Supreme Court granted the relief.

The New Jersey Supreme Court held that Karen had a right of privacy grounded in the Federal Constitution to terminate treatment. The Court however, recognized that this right was not absolute but should be considered on a case by case basis. The court also concluded that the “only practical way” to prevent the loss of Karen’s privacy right due to her incompetence was to allow her guardian and family to decide “whether she would exercise it in these circumstances.

Although the Quinlan case helped define the ethical and legal controversy of the “right to die,” Karen Ann’s case did not entirely change the laws to support those rights. The same court that decided the Quinlan case considered whether a nasogastric feeding tube could be removed from an 84-year-old incompetent nursing-home resident suffering from irreversible mental and physical ailments. While recognizing that a federal right of privacy might apply in the case the court, contrary to its approach in the Quinlan case, decided to base its decision on the common law right to self-determination and informed consent. Since there was no living will or power of attorney in place the court ruled in favor of the nursing home allowing continued feedings. The cases continue to be considered, each on an individual basis.

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