A
'living will' or Advance
Directive for Medical Care is
a legal document
setting forth your own personal
medical ethics,
stating clearly how
you want to be treated
at the end of your life.
Especially if you want
something other than
standard medical care,
you must put your
wishes into writing.
The
first part of any Advance
Directive is appointing proxies
to make your medical
decisions for you
if you become unable
to decide for yourself.
These surrogates will
enforce whatever you
put in your 'living will'.
But the Supreme Court
has ruled that there
are some decisions
proxies cannot make
(such as withdrawing
food and water)
without "clear and
convincing" evidence
that you want no such
life-sustaining measures
when you become
comatose with little possibility
of recovery.
You must decide the
exact criteria for ending
life-support systems.
Whatever your
decisions, the best way to
make sure
your wishes are
carried out is to write them
in your 'living will'.
Creating your 'living will'
can take 1 hour or 10 hours.
But even a simple
'living will' is infinitely
better than no record at all.
Minnesota law allows
you to write a comprehensive
'living will'.
(James Park's 'living
will' is 50 pages long.)
We
will discuss 24 questions
for comprehensive Advance Directives.
Some of the themes:
quality of life; pain
control;
termination of
treatment; right to die; definitions
of death;
disposition of
remains; philosophical-religious
issues.
OUTLINE:
I. SCOPE OF YOUR DECLARATION & APPOINTING PROXY DECISION-MAKERS
II. QUALITY-OF-LIFE ISSUES
III. PAIN CONTROL,
NURSING HOME,
FINANCIAL LIMITS, & MEDICAL INFORMATION
IV. LIFE-ENDING DECISIONS
V. DISPOSITION OF YOUR REMAINS
VI. PHILOSOPHICAL-RELIGIOUS BELIEFS & READINESS FOR DEATH
James Park is an existential
philosopher and medical ethicist.
One of his future
books will be Your
Last Year:
Creating
Your Own Advance Directive for Medical Care
,
which will be
organized around the 24
questions presented in this talk.
James
Park's Advance Directive is available online.
Return to Top 40 Sermon Subjects by James Park.
Return to the UNITARIAN-UNIVERSALISM page.
Return to the Medical Ethics Index page.
Return
to the beginning
of this home page:
An
Existential Philosopher's Museum.