Agreed. What do you think of this?
August 10, 2001
California Justices Limit Families'
Right to End Life Support
By EVELYN NIEVES
AN FRANCISCO, Aug. 9 — In September 1993, Robert
Wendland of nearby Stockton crashed his pickup truck, an
accident that left him brain-damaged and unable to walk, talk, eat or
drink, or in any way communicate his wishes. Two years later his
wife, Rose, asked doctors to remove the feeding tubes that kept
him alive, saying he had told her not long before the crash that he
would never want to live in so helpless a condition.
But Mr. Wendland's mother and sister objected, noting among
other things that he was conscious, if minimally so, and not
comatose. They carried their case all the way to the California
Supreme Court.
Today the justices ruled in their favor, finding that families have no
right to stop life support for conscious patients who are not
terminally ill, and who have not left explicit instructions allowing
them to do so or formally appointed anyone to make health care
decisions in the event of incapacity.
Although Mr. Wendland, still attached to feeding tubes, died of pneumonia last month at the age of 49, the
court had retained the closely watched case to clarify law regarding the right of families to disconnect life
support systems.
In its 6-to-0 decision today, the court said that "absent clear and convincing evidence" that Rose Wendland's
decision was in accordance with her husband's own wishes or best interest, it would not have allowed the
removal of life support.
Courts have previously allowed the removal of life support in cases where a
patient is terminally ill or in a permanent comalike state, most famously a
quarter-century ago in the precedent-setting case of Karen Ann Quinlan in
New Jersey. But the law has been unclear as to how families can proceed
when patients are conscious but unable to express their wishes.
The justices emphasized the narrow scope of their ruling, saying it affected
only cases involving patients who are conscious, who would die without life
support, and who have not left formal directions for health care or legally
appointed anyone to make such decisions should they ever be unable to
make them.
"Our conclusion," Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote for the court,
"does not affect permanently unconscious patients, including those who are
comatose or in a persistent vegetative state."
Jon Eisenberg, an Oakland lawyer representing more than 40 medical ethicists who had urged the court to
uphold Rose Wendland's wishes, said the ruling meant that "if you want to have a say in your end-of-life
decision making, you'd better put it in an advance, written directive." He added, "The problem here is, I don't
know how you do that in a manner that covers all of the possibilities."
Janie Hickok Siess, a lawyer for Mr. Wendland's mother, Florence Wendland, and for his sister, Rebekah
Vinson, called the ruling "a total win for us," in that it "found that Rose Wendland did not have sufficient
evidence to justify pulling the feeding tube." |
