Health Care Proxies & Living Wills
A Health Care Proxy is a document that allows you to choose who will be your proxy, or agent, to make health care decisions for you if you are unable, because of incapacity, to make decisions for yourself. You always have the right to make your own decisions if you are capable of understanding your condition, the treatment or choices available to you, and the consequences of your decisions. If, however, you are unable to speak for yourself, or your condition has impaired your ability to comprehend your condition and the choices, then most people would prefer to know that someone they trust to take care of them would make those decisions for them with the advice and counsel of their health care advisors. By designating a proxy, or agent, they determine who that person will be if the circumstances require.
A “living will” is a document that can be prepared to give specific directions to your health care proxy, or agent, as to how you should be cared for in the event that you are unable to make your own health care decisions and you are also suffering from a condition that has in all respects rendered you likely to not survive or to survive but under such conditions that you deem would constitute an unacceptable quality of life to be perpetuated by any further medical care or intervention. A “living will” is not yet a legally binding document in New York State (although the State Legislature is considering this). Instead, it is a document that is intended to provide “clear and convincing evidence” of your wishes under the circumstances specified by you. It is not a matter of choosing between life and death, but of deciding what kind of treatment or intervention you want under “end of life” circumstances as you define them. Virtually everyone is familiar with the case of Terry Schiavo and the sad and bitter battle that ensued between her husband and her parents over whether to withdraw certain life-sustaining treatment from her after she suffered what her doctors determined was irreversible brain death. The point is not who was right or wrong in that case, but rather that if Terry had put her wishes into a form that could be relied upon as “clear and convincing evidence” of her wishes, then those who loved her would not have suffered to stand in her place to decide. Each of you has this right.
