Recuperative medical care and palliative care

Business Law Term Paper

APA Format with (3) sources

Step 1 – Locate case United States Supreme Court case of Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, 497 U.S. 261 (1990).

The full text of this case, along with numerous case briefs, commentaries, summaries, etc., may be found by simply entering the full name of the case into any major online search engine of your choosing.

Step 2 – Read case. Review the following questions:

• What was the ultimate numerical vote of the court?

• When and how can life support be withdrawn?

• How does death by refusal of treatment differ from suicide?

• How does a living will work and when does it become of legal effect?

• What is a health care directive and how does it work?

Step 3 – After completing your research, summarize your answers, and, along with any other sources, if any, address and support your particular position/view on the following specific issues, and, specifically, how you would apply the Saint Leo University Core Values of Community, Respect, and Integrity into your actions. Be sure to use proper APA format for citations.

1. What are the potential foreseeable financial, psychological, and medical, yet unintended, harmful consequences to one’s family and friends in failing to provide a properly executed will and living will prior to one’s final illness and death?

2. What are the fundamental distinctions between recuperative medical care and palliative care? Who should be included in the decision to modify care from recuperative to palliative? When, if ever, is the right to refuse any and all medical care appropriate when such virtually ensures the death of the patient?

3. What professionals, medical or otherwise, should be involved in advising decisions concerning end-of life wishes? How does euthanasia differ from a simple cessation of treatment? Who should make end of life decisions for those who are without a family member to take on such a role?

4. What measures can be taken to ensure the quality of ongoing family and social relationships, individually and as a group, to end-of-life patients? What pitfalls are to be avoided in ensuring maintenance of these relationships? What actions may be taken to ensure the spiritual and existential dimensions of the process are respected and integrated?

U.S. Supreme Court

Cruzan v. Director, MDH, 497 U.S. 261 (1990)

Cruzan by Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health

No. 88-1503

Argued Dec. 6, 1989

Decided June 25, 1990

497 U.S. 261

Syllabus

Petitioner Nancy Cruzan is incompetent, having sustained severe injuries in an automobile accident, and now lies in a Missouri state hospital in what is referred to as a persistent vegetative state: generally, a condition in which a person exhibits motor reflexes but evinces no indications of significant cognitive function. The State is bearing the cost of her care. Hospital employees refused, without court approval, to honor the request of Cruzan's parents, copetitioners here, to terminate her artificial nutrition and hydration, since that would result in death. A state trial court authorized the termination, finding that a person in Cruzan's condition has a fundamental right under the State and Federal Constitutions to direct or refuse the withdrawal of death-prolonging procedures, and that Cruzan's expression to a former housemate that she would not wish to continue her life if sick or injured unless she could live at least halfway normally suggested that she would not wish to continue on with her nutrition and hydration. The State Supreme Court reversed. While recognizing a right to refuse treatment embodied in the common-law doctrine of informed consent, the court questioned its applicability in this case. It also declined to read into the State Constitution a broad right to privacy that would support an unrestricted right to refuse treatment and expressed doubt that the Federal Constitution embodied such a right. The court then decided that the State Living Will statute embodied a state policy strongly favoring the preservation of life, and that Cruzan's statements to her housemate were unreliable for the purpose of determining her intent. It rejected the argument that her parents were entitled to order the termination of her medical treatment, concluding that no person can assume that choice for an incompetent in the absence of the formalities required by the Living Will statute or clear and convincing evidence of the patient's wishes.

Held:

1. The United States Constitution does not forbid Missouri to require that evidence of an incompetent's wishes as to the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment be proved by clear and convincing evidence. Pp. 497 U. S. 269-285.

Page 497 U. S. 262

(a) Most state courts have based a right to refuse treatment on the common law right to informed consent, see, e.g., In re Storar, 52 N.Y.2d 363, 438 N.Y.S.2d 266, 420 N.E.2d 64, or on both that right and a constitutional privacy right, see, e.g., Superintendent of Belchertown State School v. Saikewicz, 373 Mass. 728, 370 N.E.2d 417. In addition to relying on state constitutions and the common law, state courts have also turned to state statutes for guidance, see, e.g., Conservatorship of Drabick, 200 Cal. App. 3d 185, 245 Cal. Rptr. 840. However, these sources are not available to this Court, where the question is simply whether the Federal Constitution prohibits Missouri from choosing the rule of law which it did.

(b) A competent person has a liberty interest under the Due Process Clause in refusing unwanted medical treatment. Cf., e.g., Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 197 U. S. 24-30. However, the question whether that constitutional right has been violated must be determined by balancing the liberty interest against relevant state interests. For purposes of this case, it is assumed that a competent person would have a constitutionally protected right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition. This does not mean that an incompetent person should possess the same right, since such a person is unable to make an informed and voluntary choice to exercise that hypothetical right or any other right. While Missouri has in effect recognized that, under certain circumstances, a surrogate may act for the patient in electing to withdraw hydration and nutrition and thus cause death, it has established a procedural safeguard to assure that the surrogate's action conforms as best it may to the wishes expressed by the patient while competent. Pp. 497 U. S. 280-285,

(c) It is permissible for Missouri, in its proceedings, to apply a clear and convincing evidence standard, which is an appropriate standard when the individual interests at stake are both particularly important and more substantial than mere loss of money, Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U. S. 745, 455 U. S. 756. Here, Missouri has a general interest in the protection and preservation of human life, as well as other, more particular interests, at stake. It may legitimately seek to safeguard the personal element of an individual's choice between life and death. The State is also entitled to guard against potential abuses by surrogates who may not act to protect the patient. Similarly, it is entitled to consider that a judicial proceeding regarding an incompetent's wishes may not be adversarial, with the added guarantee of accurate factfinding that the adversary process brings with it. The State may also properly decline to make judgments about the "quality" of a particular individual's life, and simply assert an unqualified interest in the preservation of human life to be weighed against the constitutionally protected interests of the individual. It is self-evident that these interests are more substantial, both on

Page 497 U. S. 263

an individual and societal level, than those involved in a common civil dispute. The clear and convincing evidence standard also serves as a societal judgment about how the risk of error should be distributed between the litigants. Missouri may permissibly place the increased risk of an erroneous decision on those seeking to terminate life-sustaining treatment. An erroneous decision not to terminate results in a maintenance of the status quo, with at least the potential that a wrong decision will eventually be corrected or its impact mitigated by an event such as an advancement in medical science or the patient's unexpected death. However, an erroneous decision to withdraw such treatment is not susceptible of correction. Although Missouri's proof requirement may have frustrated the effectuation of Cruzan's not-fully-expressed desires, the Constitution does not require general rules to work flawlessly. Pp. 497 U. S. 280-285.

2. The State Supreme Court did not commit constitutional error in concluding that the evidence adduced at trial did not amount to clear and convincing proof of Cruzan's desire to have hydration and nutrition withdrawn. The trial court had not adopted a clear and convincing evidence standard, and Cruzan's observations that she did not want to live life as a "vegetable" did not deal in terms with withdrawal of medical treatment or of hydration and nutrition. P. 497 U. S. 285.

3. The Due Process Clause does not require a State to accept the "substituted judgment" of close family members in the absence of substantial proof that their views reflect the patient's. This Court's decision upholding a State's favored treatment of traditional family relationships, Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110, may not be turned into a constitutional requirement that a State must recognize the primacy of these relationships in a situation like this. Nor may a decision upholding a State's right to permit family decisionmaking, Parham v. J.R., 442 U. S. 584, be turned into a constitutional requirement that the State recognize such decisionmaking. Nancy Cruzan's parents would surely be qualified to exercise such a right of "substituted judgment" were it required by the Constitution. However, for the same reasons that Missouri may require clear and convincing evidence of a patient's wishes, it may also choose to defer only to those wishes, rather than confide the decision to close family members. Pp. 497 U. S. 285-287.

760 S.W.2d 408, affirmed.

REHNQUIST, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., post, p. 497 U. S. 287, and SCALIA, J., post, p. 497 U. S. 292, filed concurring opinions. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL and BLACKMUN,

Page 497 U. S. 264

JJ., joined, post, p. 497 U. S. 301. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 497 U. S. 330.

Page 497 U. S. 265

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