The state Supreme Court has clarified the responsibilities of guardians to seek life-preserving treatment for people under their care.
The justices ruled unanimously last week that when an incompetent person is neither in a state of permanent unconsciousness nor in an "end-stage condition"—and has not designated a health care agent—he or she is entitled to medical help that will preserve his or her life.
The ruling came in the case of a severely retarded 53-year-old man whose parents wanted to take him off a ventilator after he developed complications from choking on a hairpin.
The man, identified in court as D.L.H. or as David, an "incapacitated person" under the state's Probates, Estates and Fiduciaries Code, has lived at the state Public Welfare Department's Ebensburg Center for most of his life.
Department spokesman Mike Race called the result "the outcome that we had wanted the court to take."
Full Article and Source:
Pa. High Court Rules on Disabled Medical Decisions
4 comments:
Protecting life would fulfill the "guard" part of the word "guardian"
This is a major victory that I hope spreads state to state.
Watch your back, assisted suicide folks, the tide is turning!
If NY had such a law, Gary Harvey would have been spared the attempt on his life.
Good news!
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