Active euthanasia and forgoing life-sustaining treatment: Can we hold the line?

Guidance on Forgoing Life-Sustaining Medical Treatment.

Pediatric health care is practiced with the goal of promoting the best interests of the child. Treatment generally is rendered under a presumption in favor of sustaining life. However, in some circumstances, the balance of benefits and burdens to the child leads to an assessment that forgoing life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT) is ethically supportable or advisable. Parents are given wide ...

Refusing life-sustaining treatment: can we just say no?

The ethics of forgoing life-sustaining treatment: theoretical considerations and clinical decision making

Withholding or withdrawing a life-sustaining treatment tends to be very challenging for health care providers, patients, and their family members alike. When a patient's life seems to be nearing its end, it is generally felt that the morally best approach is to try a new intervention, continue all treatments, attempt an experimental course of action, in short, do something. In contrast to this ...

Evaluation of changes in forgoing life-sustaining treatment in Israeli ICU patients.

INTRODUCTION Over the last several years, there have been legal decisions and changes in medical directives concerning end-of-life decisions in Israel. METHODS The data were compared to evaluate the changes in the frequency and types of forgoing of life-sustaining treatment (FLST) in patients who were admitted to the ICU during period I (November 1994 to July 1995) and period II (January 1998...

Should we respect precedent autonomy in life-sustaining treatment decisions?

The recent judgement in the case of Re:M in which the Court held that it would be unlawful to withdraw artificial nutrition and hydration from a woman in a minimally conscious state raises a number of ethical issues of wide application. Central to these is the extent to which precedent autonomous decisions should be respected in the absence of a legally binding advance decision. Well-being inte...