Advances in healthcare technologies, current court rulings and emerging political trends have brought with them a quantity of life-and-death options which numerous have by no means just before viewed as. The looming prospect of legalized physician-assisted suicide is one such decision which severely erodes the inherent value and dignity of human life. The substantially-publicized efforts of specific doctors to give carbon monoxide poisoning or prescribe lethal drugs for their terminally ill sufferers constitute euthanasia. So may perhaps the removal of specific 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 need to be and are rejected by the vast majority of U.S. states.
Nonetheless, people faced with these tough dilemmas ought to be produced conscious that there are morally-suitable, life-affirming legal choices obtainable to them. One such solution, for Catholics and others, can be a “wellness care power of attorney” 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 ability to determine for your self. This appointment is executed by means of a “well being care energy of lawyer” type, a model for which can be obtained from your lawyer.
A wellness care power of lawyer can be a morally and legally acceptable means of defending your wishes, values and religious beliefs when faced with a serious illness or debilitating accident. Accordingly, for persons wishing to execute well being care powers of lawyer, see the following directions and guidance from the authoritative teachings and traditions of several religious faiths.
The intent of the well being care energy of attorney law is to let adults to delegate their God-offered, legally-recognized proper to make wellness care decisions to a designated and trusted agent. The law does not intend to encourage or discourage any distinct overall health care therapy. Nor does it legalize or promote euthanasia, suicide or assisted suicide. The well being care energy of lawyer law makes it possible for you, or any competent adult, to designate an “agent,” such as a household member or close friend, to make wellness care decisions for you if you lose the ability to choose for your self in the future. This is carried out by completing a wellness care energy of lawyer kind.
You…
o Have the appropriate to make all of your personal overall health care decisions whilst capable of undertaking so. The overall health care energy of attorney only becomes powerful when and if you grow to be incapacitated through illness or accident.
o Have the proper to challenge your doctor’s determination that you are not capable of producing your personal healthcare decisions.
o CAN give special guidelines about your health-related remedy to your agent and can forbid your agent from making certain therapy choices. To do so, you simply will need to communicate your wishes, beliefs and directions to your agent. Directions about any particular treatments or procedures which you want or do not desire below specific situations can also be written in your wellness care power of attorney and/or offered in a separate living will.
o Can revoke your wellness care power of attorney or the appointment of your agent at any time although competent.
o May possibly 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 associated by blood, marriage or adoption. 1996
Your agent…
o Can commence generating Healthcare products for you only when your physician determines that you are no longer able to make wellness care decisions for oneself.
o May possibly make any and all wellness care choices for you, including therapies for physical or mental situations and choices concerning life-sustaining procedures, unless you limit the power of your agent.
o Will not have authority to make decisions about the artificial provision of nutrition and hydration (nourishment and water by means of feeding tubes) unless he or she clearly knows that these choices are in accord with your wishes about those measures.
o Is protected from legal liability when acting in superior faith.
o Ought to base his or her decisions on your wishes or, if your wishes can not be reasonably ascertained, in your “best interests.” The agent’s choices will take precedence over the choices of all other persons, regardless of family members relationships.