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Looking Back at Withdrawal of Life-Support Law and Policy to See What Lies Ahead for Medical Aid-in-Dying

Current efforts to legalize medical aid-in-dying in this country follow a half century of remarkable legal developments regarding when, how, and on whose terms to intervene to prevent death and extend life in critically and terminally ill patients. The starting point—which I call the first stage alo...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Capron, Alexander Morgan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: YJBM 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6913806/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31866795
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author Capron, Alexander Morgan
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description Current efforts to legalize medical aid-in-dying in this country follow a half century of remarkable legal developments regarding when, how, and on whose terms to intervene to prevent death and extend life in critically and terminally ill patients. The starting point—which I call the first stage along the path—was the creation in the two decades following World War II of powerful means of keeping very ill, and typically unconscious, patients alive. The second stage began in the late 1960s as physicians (and then others in society) began to grapple with the consequences of maintaining such patients on life-support indefinitely. Over five decades, judicial decisions, followed by implementing statutes and regulations, transformed legal rights and medical practices. Are the current developments—which center on legalizing medical aid-in-dying—a third stage along the same path, or do the striking differences between the issues raised about life-sustaining treatment and euthanasia suggest that they are separate? What lessons might those proceeding along the aid-in-dying path take from the development of the other path, and if the two paths are still distinct today, might they merge in the future?
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spelling pubmed-69138062019-12-20 Looking Back at Withdrawal of Life-Support Law and Policy to See What Lies Ahead for Medical Aid-in-Dying Capron, Alexander Morgan Yale J Biol Med Analyses Current efforts to legalize medical aid-in-dying in this country follow a half century of remarkable legal developments regarding when, how, and on whose terms to intervene to prevent death and extend life in critically and terminally ill patients. The starting point—which I call the first stage along the path—was the creation in the two decades following World War II of powerful means of keeping very ill, and typically unconscious, patients alive. The second stage began in the late 1960s as physicians (and then others in society) began to grapple with the consequences of maintaining such patients on life-support indefinitely. Over five decades, judicial decisions, followed by implementing statutes and regulations, transformed legal rights and medical practices. Are the current developments—which center on legalizing medical aid-in-dying—a third stage along the same path, or do the striking differences between the issues raised about life-sustaining treatment and euthanasia suggest that they are separate? What lessons might those proceeding along the aid-in-dying path take from the development of the other path, and if the two paths are still distinct today, might they merge in the future? YJBM 2019-12-20 /pmc/articles/PMC6913806/ /pubmed/31866795 Text en Copyright ©2019, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY-NC license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
spellingShingle Analyses
Capron, Alexander Morgan
Looking Back at Withdrawal of Life-Support Law and Policy to See What Lies Ahead for Medical Aid-in-Dying
title Looking Back at Withdrawal of Life-Support Law and Policy to See What Lies Ahead for Medical Aid-in-Dying
title_full Looking Back at Withdrawal of Life-Support Law and Policy to See What Lies Ahead for Medical Aid-in-Dying
title_fullStr Looking Back at Withdrawal of Life-Support Law and Policy to See What Lies Ahead for Medical Aid-in-Dying
title_full_unstemmed Looking Back at Withdrawal of Life-Support Law and Policy to See What Lies Ahead for Medical Aid-in-Dying
title_short Looking Back at Withdrawal of Life-Support Law and Policy to See What Lies Ahead for Medical Aid-in-Dying
title_sort looking back at withdrawal of life-support law and policy to see what lies ahead for medical aid-in-dying
topic Analyses
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6913806/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31866795
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