Advances in health-related technologies, recent court rulings and emerging political trends have brought with them a number of life-and-death possibilities which quite a few have never just before deemed. The looming prospect of legalized physician-assisted suicide is a single such selection which severely erodes the inherent worth and dignity of human life. The a great deal-publicized efforts of particular physicians to provide carbon monoxide poisoning or prescribe lethal drugs for their terminally ill patients constitute euthanasia. So may possibly the removal of specific life-sustaining treatment options from a patient who is not in a terminal condition. Euthanasia and willful suicide, in any type, are offenses against life they should be and are rejected by the vast majority of U.S. states.
However, individuals faced with these challenging dilemmas ought to be created conscious that there are morally-acceptable, life-affirming legal selections readily available to them. 1 such option, for Catholics and others, can be a “health care power of lawyer” and “living will.” South Carolina State law enables you to appoint somebody as your agent to make well being care decisions for you in the occasion you drop the capacity to determine for oneself. This appointment is executed by means of a “overall health care energy of lawyer” form, a model for which can be obtained from your attorney.
A health care power of lawyer can be a morally and legally acceptable signifies of safeguarding your wishes, values and religious beliefs when faced with a serious illness or debilitating accident. Accordingly, for persons wishing to execute overall health care powers of attorney, see the following instructions and guidance from the authoritative teachings and traditions of several religious faiths.
The intent of the overall health care energy of attorney law is to let adults to delegate their God-offered, legally-recognized proper to make overall health care decisions to a designated and trusted agent. The law does not intend to encourage or discourage any particular wellness care treatment. Nor does it legalize or market euthanasia, suicide or assisted suicide. The overall health care energy of attorney law permits you, or any competent adult, to designate an “agent,” such as a family members member or close buddy, to make well being care decisions for you if you drop the capacity to determine for your self in the future. This is completed by finishing a wellness care energy of lawyer form.
You…
o Have the right to make all of your personal overall health care decisions while capable of performing so. The wellness care energy of attorney only becomes effective when and if you come to be incapacitated via illness or accident.
o Have the correct to challenge your doctor’s determination that you are not capable of creating your own medical decisions.
Christian healthcare ministries plans give particular guidelines about your healthcare treatment to your agent and can forbid your agent from generating particular treatment choices. To do so, you basically need to communicate your wishes, beliefs and guidelines to your agent. Directions about any certain therapies or procedures which you wish or do not want below special circumstances can also be written in your health care energy of attorney and/or offered in a separate living will.
o Can revoke your wellness care energy of attorney or the appointment of your agent at any time even though competent.
o May possibly not designate as your agent an administrator or employee of the hospital, nursing dwelling or mental hygiene facility to which you are admitted, unless they are associated by blood, marriage or adoption. 1996
Your agent…
o Can begin producing choices for you only when your physician determines that you are no longer able to make wellness care choices for yourself.
o May well make any and all health care choices for you, including treatments for physical or mental circumstances and decisions regarding life-sustaining procedures, unless you limit the power of your agent.
o Will not have authority to make choices 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 these measures.
o Is protected from legal liability when acting in superior faith.
o Will have to base his or her decisions on your wishes or, if your wishes can’t be reasonably ascertained, in your “greatest interests.” The agent’s choices will take precedence over the decisions of all other persons, regardless of family relationships.