Medical ethics and the Romanian law. Surrogate decisions regarding life-saving medical interventions

Romanian doctors who encounter controversial surrogate decisions such as refusal of life-saving interventions react differently from an ethical perspective. Some do not take into account the surrogates’ rejection of treatment, while others respect and abide by the surrogates’ decision and withhold the refused procedures, forgoing their ethical responsibilities. In this article we will defend the ethical position that doctors should consider and, therefore, thoroughly evaluate the surrogate decisions in cases where the medical intervention is life-saving and the benefits for the patient are significant and certain. The doctors who choose to obey the controversial decisions of surrogates usually invoke the Romanian medical law. In the following we argue that in today’s Romanian medical framework there is a conflict between ethical (professional) obligations and the some of the legal provisions and we provide two ethical arguments, one principlist and one contractualist, that prompt for the overriding of refusals which concern life-saving interventions.