Download The Right to Refuse Medical Treatment: Quinlan, Conroy, Cruzan and Related Cases and more Slides Public Health in PDF only on Docsity! The Right and Duty to Die Docsity.com Quinlan • How does the court justify the right of a competent person to refuse medical treatment? – Constitutional right – Balance right of individual to refuse treatment with state’s right to preserve life – Medical ethos of providing aid to the dying. Docsity.com Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health • How does Cruzan deal with the question of the right of a competent individual to refuse medical treatment? – Right implicit in the concept of “informed consent.” – Inference from prior decision that the right is embodied in 14th amendment’s protection of life, liberty and property.” – Notion of a “liberty interest.” Docsity.com Notes and Questions • Would patients be discouraged from seeking care if life- sustaining care could not be withdrawn? • Is there a difference between withholding and withdrawing care legally or morally • What role does cost play in the debate over the right to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining care? • What is the state’s interest in the preservation of human life divorced from the individual’s interest in his/her own life? – If the state has an independent interest, how do we balance it against the interest of the individual? Docsity.com Notes and Questions • How to Quinlan and Conroy differ on the balancing of state and individual interests? • Consider problem of Mr. Cure on page 588 and questions at end of the note. • What is the difference between the withdrawal of life support and assisted suicide? Docsity.com In Re Conroy/In re Jobes/Cruzan • How are the patients in Conroy and Jobes alike or dissimilar. • What rules are established in New Jersey for a surrogate decisonmaker to withhold or withdraws life support? • What does Cruzan add to the discussion? Docsity.com Problems • Family Decisionmaking, pg. 631 note 6 – Should families decisions be controlling? • Disagreement among family members – How resolved – Should some family members hold trump cards? • Should living wills and proxy designations be combined? • What advice do you give clients concerned that they have heard doctors don’t follow living wills? Docsity.com Problems • Problem, Page 640 • Review the cases on page 644-45. Which ones do you agree with; which ones do you disagree with? Docsity.com Assisted Suicide’s Poster
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In re Baby K • What are the facts of this case? • Why, given the medical assessment of futility, is the physician's professional judgment ignored? Docsity.com In re Wanglie • What are the facts of this case? • Can the patient’s insurer refuse to pay for her continued medical care on the grounds that such care is futile and contrary to medical advice? Docsity.com
