Euthanasia Laws in the United States
Euthanasia Laws In the United States
Introduction to Euthanasia Laws
Laws in the United States maintain the distinction between passive and active euthanasia. This happens also in Canada. While active euthanasia is prohibited, courts in both countries have ruled that physicians should not be legally punished if they withhold or withdraw a life-sustaining treatment at the request of a patient or the patient’s authorized representative. These decisions are based on increasing acceptance of the doctrine that patients possess a right to refuse treatment.
Until the late 1970s, whether or not patients possessed a legal right of refusal was highly disputed. One factor that may have contributed to growing acceptance of this right is the ability to keep individuals alive for long periods of time-even when they are permanently unconscious or severely brain-damaged. Proponents of legalized euthanasia believe that prolonging life through the use of modern technological advances, such as respirators and kidney machines, may cause unwarranted suffering to the patient and the family. As technology has advanced, the legal rights of the patient to forgo such technological intervention have expanded.
Every U.S. state has adopted laws that authorize legally competent individuals to make advanced directives, often referred to as living wills. Such documents allow individuals to control some features of the time and manner of their deaths. In particular, these directives empower and instruct doctors to withhold life-support systems if the individuals become terminally ill. Furthermore, the federal Patient Self-Determination Act, which became effective in 1991, requires federally certified health-care facilities to notify competent adult patients of their right to accept or refuse medical treatment. The facilities must also inform such patients of their rights under the applicable state law to formulate an advanced directive. Patients in Canada have similar rights to refuse life-sustaining treatments and formulate advanced directives.
Only one U.S. state, Oregon, has enacted a law allowing physicians to actively assist patients who wish to end their lives. However, Oregon’s law concerns assisted suicide rather than active euthanasia. It authorizes physicians to prescribe lethal amounts of medication that patients then administer themselves.
In response to modern medical technology, physicians and lawmakers are slowly developing new professional and legal definitions of death. Additionally, experts are formulating rules to implement these definitions in clinical situations-for example, when procuring organs for transplantation. The majority of states have accepted a definition of brain death-the point when certain parts of the brain cease to function-as the time when it is legal to turn off a patient’s life-support system, with permission from the family.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Euthanasia Laws in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia