…ons upon health care resources precipitate increased “rationing” of health care services and health care financing. People with disabilities are among society’s most likely candidates for ending their lives, as society has frequently made it clear that it believes they would be better off dead, or better that they had not been born. The experience in the Netherlands demonstrates that legalizing assisted suicide generates strong pressures upon indi…
…ilateral decision of the health care provider under what are often termed “futile care policies.” What the NDRN report emphasizes is that people with disabilities are entitled to constitutional protections including 14th Amendment due process when third parties are seeking to withhold life-sustaining treatment. Illustrative cases – Developmental Disability Two cases illustrate this problem as it impacts people with developmental disabilities. In t…
…nd that parents and guardians have unlimited authority to withhold medical care from those under their care so long as those individuals have disabilities. Such a result would effectively reverse Wisconsin’s longstanding recognition that the authority of parents and guardians does not extend to decisions to end the lives of their children or wards by depriving them of necessary health care, and would set a dangerous precedent for other states. Peo…
…percentage of respondents over-interpreted DNR orders as meaning “comfort care” or “end-of-life” care only.[33] The study shows clearly that having a living will and/or a DNR order makes it much more likely that physicians will withhold treatments that a patient actually wants. Even more clearly involuntary are futility policies that grant immunity to physicians who deny care that the patient or surrogate expressly wants.[34] Legalizing assisted…
…ons upon health care resources precipitate increased “rationing” of health care services and health care financing. People with disabilities are among society’s most likely candidates for ending their lives, as society has frequently made it clear that it believes they would be better off dead, or better that they had not been born. The experience in the Netherlands demonstrates that legalizing assisted suicide generates strong pressures upon indi…
