Withholding nutrition and mistrusting nurturance: the vocabulary of In re Conroy.
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This paper compares the critically comments upon certain aspects of the Canadian Law Reform Commission Report, Euthanasia, Aiding Suicide and Cessation of Treatment, and the United States Presidential Commission Report, Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment. It focuses on their positions on euthanasia and on the general principles, values, and procedures that ought to govern practices of foregoing life-sustaining treatment. The paper first comments on the recent debate over the moral relevance of the killing/letting die distinction, since this issue appears crucial in assessing the rationality of the current, absolute prohibitions of direct killing in medical contexts, embodied both in law and in codes of ethics. This issue bear upon a question in the closing section--whether the withdrawal of foods and fluids is ever morally permissible.
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In the recent past, public and professional attention has focused on the question of whether and when it is appropriate to discontinue nutritional support from patients unable or unwilling to ingest food orally. This article addresses the special problems raised by patients who resist medical feeding. It discusses the following issues relevant to this patient group: competency to make treatment choices, decision making on behalf of incompetent patients, the competent patient's right of self-determination, and procedures for reviewing treatment decisions. Legal decisions bearing on the nourishment question are analyzed as well. Although the author concludes that cessation of nourishment is morally and legally permissible in a few cases, she also cautions that the option should be carefully and narrowly applied.
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In cases involving the "right to die," courts are faced with the agonizing task of developing legal standards governing termination of an incompetent patient's medical treatment. In this Article, Professor Rhoden criticizes the two dominant approaches courts have developed--the "subjective" and "objective" tests--and proposes that these standards be abandoned for a legal presumption in favor of family decisionmaking. She maintains that the "subjective" test, which requires the family to provide clear proof that termination of treatment is what the incompetent would have chosen, is often unworkable because a patient's character traits, and even her prior statements about medical treatment, seldom rise to the evidentiary level that courts purport to require. Similarly, she argues that the "objective" test, which requires the family to prove that the burdens of the patient's life, measured in terms of pain and suffering, clearly and markedly outweight its benefits, dehumanizes patients by suggesting that only their present, physical sensations count. Professor Rhoden suggests that the subjective and objective tests are not nearly as distinct as courts have made them. She argues that the rigidity of these legal standards reflects courts' acceptance of the medical profession's presumption in favor of continued treatment, a presumption that places a heavy burden on families seeking to terminate treatment. Drawing on the special qualifications of families as decisionmakers in such cases, Professor Rhoden proposes that courts recognize a presumptive right of families to exercise discretion over treatment decisions. Such a standard would recognize that, although doctors and others can readily prove that terminating the treatment of a patient who can still enjoy life is wrong, it is very hard for families to meet the current standards, which essentially require them to prove that termination is right.
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