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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
19 pages in length. Deciding to live or die is not a decision one makes without sufficient understanding of the hard-boiled implications. When someone suffers from a terminal illness and tires of chasing the disease to the detriment of their quality of life, he or she may decide to refuse any further life-sustaining treatment and allow life to take its course. At issue is what level any legal, medical, political and ethical elements come into play over the course of this decision-making process, as well as the extent to which the patient is competent enough to make such a potentially fatal choice. The writer touches upon several precedence setting cases. Bibliography lists 16 sources.
Page Count:
19 pages (~225 words per page)
File: LM1_TLCRfsLf.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
the detriment of their quality of life, he or she may decide to refuse any further life-sustaining treatment and allow life to take its course. At issue is what
level any legal, medical, political and ethical elements come into play over the course of this decision-making process, as well as the extent to which the patient is competent enough
to make such a potentially fatal choice. II. MEDICAL/LEGAL PERSPECTIVE The extent to which courts have the ability to impart significant changes
upon existing laws is bound by two important elements: constrained and dynamic perspectives. From the constrained viewpoint, courts are quite limited in their collective strength to modify legislature due
to constitutional limitations, lack of judicial independence and insufficiency of implementation powers (Rosenberg, 1991). In contrast, the dynamic point of view reflects the belief that "courts are free from
electoral constraints and institutional arrangements that stymie change. Uniquely situated, courts have the capacity to act where other institutions are politically unwilling or structurally unable to proceed" (Rosenberg, 1991,
p. 22). Within the past several years, the Supreme Court has had to grapple with many controversial issues and decide accordingly the best way to appease both the law
and the public; its dynamic decision about whether to include doctor-assisted suicide and voluntary suicide (inclusive of refusal of life-sustaining treatment) within the boundaries of the law was monumental and
unprecedented. The widely awaited decision allowing individual states to conclude for themselves whether to permit suicide alternatives represented a much needed bend in
the ever stringent law that did not allow for an individual to dictate his or her own mortality. Chief Justice Rehnquist said the court has long recognized the difference
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