What is now referred to as “futile” medical care should cause us all more than a little distress. Doctors and hospital ethics committees are now deciding that in certain circumstances, where (in their opinion) there is “no hope for improvement,” no course of treatment will be provided. In Texas, the futile care law empowers hospital ethics committees to order termination of life-sustaining treatment, giving the patients and their families just 10 days to find another hospital. Equally disturbing is that these futile care laws permit doctors to refuse even wanted treatment that is provided for in a patient’s written advance directive.
In fact, according to an April 2005 report by the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics, “the laws of all but ten states may allow doctors and hospitals to disregard advance directives when they call for treatment, food, or fluids.”
Sadly, most Americans are not aware of these early signals of danger because they are not adequately reported in the mainstream media.
I don’t think that the general public is so desensitized to the intrinsic value of human life that they will accept these types of decisions. They want proper care, not a push out of the lifeboat.
With the new administration in Washington not being shy about how little they value life, every single one of us should be very concerned about getting sick or suffering a debilitating accident. More importantly, we should all educate ourselves on the issue and be an informed and vocal advocate for our own lives and the lives of those we love.