Euthanasia and Doctor-Assisted Suicide - Patient's Rights and Medical Care

Patient's Rights and Medical Care

In the face of the threat of euthanasia, does the patient have the right to the final word? What are his rights in the area of medical care? This essay will explore this question, and provide case histories to exemplify these rights in action.

For legally competent adult patients, regarding medical care per se - according to Anglo-American law -- every competent adult has the freedom to seek or not to seek medical care and to refuse to consent to any specific treatment proposed, under the common law right of bodily integrity and intangibility:

1. Competent adults may reject even lifesaving care under the right of bodily integrity and intangibility and also, if applicable, under the constitutional right of free exercise of religion (e.g., a Jehovah's Witness refusing a blood transfusion because it is against his religious beliefs).

2. They may not refuse lifesaving care if there is a compelling state interest in requiring treatment for the common good (e.g., immunization to prevent the spread of communicable disease).

3. A parent might be required to undergo lifesaving treatment if there is a compelling state interest in protecting the welfare of a child from being deprived of his needed caretaker.

4. Suicide attempts which result in life-threatening injuries may require lifesaving treatment which is given without requiring the patient's consent.

5. Rejection of lifesaving medical care is not legally equivalent to suicide because in those cases decided by the court none of the patients had a specific intent to cause his own death, but simply to accept the consequences of the life-threatening illness, "to let nature take its course" rather than undergo the burden of treatment.

Regarding legally incompetent patients, these are patients who lack the ability to make legal choices, so that no right to refuse consent is involved. Therefore court-ordered life-saving treatment is not a...