Precedent Autonomy: Life-Sustaining Intervention and the Demented Patient
How aggressively should we pursue life-sustaining treatment of the demented patient? This question becomes increasingly important as our population ages and medical technology offers ever more life-prolongation. In Life's Dominion, Ronald Dworkin addresses the issue in the context of an Alzheim...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1999
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| In: |
Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics
Year: 1999, Volume: 8, Issue: 2, Pages: 189-199 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | How aggressively should we pursue life-sustaining treatment of the demented patient? This question becomes increasingly important as our population ages and medical technology offers ever more life-prolongation. In Life's Dominion, Ronald Dworkin addresses the issue in the context of an Alzheimer patient who had previously declared the desire to avoid life-sustaining intervention. Dworkin argues for the primacy of what he calls precedent autonomy: “A competent person's right to autonomy requires that his past decisions about how he is to be treated if he becomes demented be respected even if they contradict the desires he has at a later point.” In 1995, the Hastings Center Report carried thoughtful rebuttals by Daniel Callahan and Rebecca Dresser. Much of Callahan's article is devoted to patients who never executed an advance directive, but he states unequivocally that such directives can be overridden, basing much of his argument on the writings of Sanford Kadish. Together, Dresser, Callahan, and Kadish define a clear position opposed to precedent autonomy. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-2147 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0963180199802084 |