By a living will I am referring to instructions written out by a person to give direction to others about health care decisions in the event the person becomes unable to speak for themselves.
Writing in a way that will clearly be interpreted by others, as you intend your instructions to be interpreted, can be a problem. Consider the following exert from a living will.
If I become incapable of expressing my wishes and my physicians declare me to have a condition from which I will not recover, then I wish to have all life prolonging procedures withheld, including, but not limited to, artificial nutrition and hydration, and life support including intubation and ventilation.
Recently I was asked to comment on health care surrogate forms and power of attorney for health. For these I use the term living wills. These are directives that a person records to be used in the event that they become unable to communicate their wishes with respect to medical decision making. This seems fairly simple. Don’t we know how we would want to be treated? Some might say, “I never want to live, unable to communicate, in a nursing home” and record in their directives that they are never to be placed in a nursing home.. … Read the rest
Recently I was asked to comment on health care surrogate forms and power of attorney for health. For these I use the term living wills. They are directives that a person records that are intended to be used in the event that they become unable to communicate their wishes with respect to medical decision making. Sometimes the directives are given for a particular person. Where I live, we use the term Power of Attorney For Person Care (POA). This is a person who has the legal responsibility to make decisions for someone who is not able to give their own directions with respect to care. … Read the rest
When some look up ethics and birth control they may hope to find the answer or justification either for or against the use of birth control. At the time of this posting, I am not yet prepared to delve very deeply into that question.
Thoughts for this post developed from a challenge presented to me. My posts on IVF imply that I believe IVF should generally not be recommended. At this point, I have not developed the same general position against birth contol.… Read the rest
Worldview and Ethical Issues from a Biblical Perspective
