Advances in healthcare technologies, recent court rulings and emerging political trends have brought with them a number of life-and-death options which a lot of have never just before thought of. The looming prospect of legalized physician-assisted suicide is one such decision which severely erodes the inherent value and dignity of human life. The a great deal-publicized efforts of specific medical doctors to offer carbon monoxide poisoning or prescribe lethal drugs for their terminally ill patients constitute euthanasia. So may well the removal of particular life-sustaining treatment options from a patient who is not in a terminal condition. Euthanasia and willful suicide, in any kind, are offenses against life they must be and are rejected by the vast majority of U.S. states.
Even so, folks faced with these tough dilemmas should be produced conscious that there are morally-suitable, life-affirming legal choices obtainable to them. 1 such alternative, for Catholics and other individuals, can be a “health care energy of lawyer” and “living will.” South Carolina State law allows you to appoint an individual as your agent to make wellness care decisions for you in the occasion you shed the capacity to choose for oneself. This appointment is executed by suggests of a “overall health care energy of lawyer” kind, a model for which can be obtained from your lawyer.
A well being care energy of lawyer can be a morally and legally acceptable suggests of defending your wishes, values and religious beliefs when faced with a really serious illness or debilitating accident. Accordingly, for persons wishing to execute well being care powers of attorney, see the following instructions and guidance from the authoritative teachings and traditions of different religious faiths.
The intent of the health care energy of lawyer law is to enable adults to delegate their God-given, legally-recognized ideal to make well being care decisions to a designated and trusted agent. The law does not intend to encourage or discourage any specific wellness care therapy. Nor does it legalize or market euthanasia, suicide or assisted suicide. The well being care energy of attorney law permits you, or any competent adult, to designate an “agent,” such as a family member or close friend, to make health care decisions for you if you lose the capability to make a decision for your self in the future. This is accomplished by finishing a well being care power of attorney form.
You…
o Have the correct to make all of your personal overall health care decisions though capable of doing so. The wellness care energy of attorney only becomes successful when and if you become incapacitated through illness or accident.
o Have the appropriate to challenge your doctor’s determination that you are not capable of making your own healthcare decisions.
o CAN give special instructions about your health-related treatment to your agent and can forbid your agent from generating specific remedy choices. To do so, you simply require to communicate your wishes, beliefs and instructions to your agent. Instructions about any particular therapies or procedures which you want or do not need under special circumstances can also be written in your wellness care energy of lawyer and/or provided in a separate living will.
o Can revoke your overall health care energy of attorney or the appointment of your agent at any time when competent.
o May well not designate as your agent an administrator or employee of the hospital, nursing household or mental hygiene facility to which you are admitted, unless they are connected by blood, marriage or adoption. 1996
Your agent…
o Can commence generating choices for you only when your physician determines that you are no longer in a position to make wellness care decisions for yourself.
o May perhaps make any and all wellness care decisions for you, such as therapies for physical or mental circumstances and choices with regards to life-sustaining procedures, unless you limit the energy of your agent.
o Will not have Home Health Care Services to make decisions about the artificial provision of nutrition and hydration (nourishment and water by way of feeding tubes) unless he or she clearly knows that these choices are in accord with your wishes about these measures.
o Is protected from legal liability when acting in fantastic faith.
o Must base his or her choices on your wishes or, if your wishes can’t be reasonably ascertained, in your “greatest interests.” The agent’s choices will take precedence more than the decisions of all other persons, regardless of family relationships.