Conscience - Bill of Health

Is It Immoral for Me to Dictate an Accelerated Death for My Future Demented Self?

December 2, 2015December 2, 2015 ncantor 2 Comments

I am obsessed with avoiding severe dementia. As a person who has always valued intellectual function, the prospect of lingering in a dysfunctional cognitive state is distasteful — an intolerable indignity. For me, such mental debilitation soils the remembrances to be left with my survivors and undermines the life narrative as a vibrant, thinking, and articulate figure that I assiduously cultivated. (Burdening others is also a distasteful prospect, but it is the vision of intolerable indignity that drives my planning of how to respond to a diagnosis of progressive dementia such as Alzheimers).

My initial plan was to engineer my own demise while still competent to do so. My sketch of methodologies and my preferred course (stopping eating and drinking) appear at: https://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2015/04/16/my-plan-to-avoid-the-ravages-of-extreme-dementia/. The obvious hazard in that plan is cutting short a still vibrant and satisfactory existence.

An alternative strategy would be to allow myself to decline into incompetency, but beforehand to dictate, in an advance directive, rejection of future life-sustaining medical interventions. This strategy would probably work as applied to serious maladies such as kidney disease, lethal cancer, or congestive heart failure. The disturbing issue then becomes timing. The onset of such serious maladies is fortuitous and years of lingering in dementia might precede my demise.

A further alternative would be to seek to accelerate my post-competence demise by declining not only major medical interventions such as mechanical respirators or dialysis, but also more simplistic items like antibiotics, antiarrhythmics, and artificial nutrition and hydration. My envisioned scenario is that infection would occur early (via urinary tract, skin, or pneumonia) and that this condition, left untreated, would precipitate my death. (My advance instructions would allow palliative but not curative measures.)

The ACA’s Nondiscrimination Rule: Hobby Lobby 2.0?

November 11, 2015November 11, 2015 esepper Leave a comment

By Elizabeth Sepper

Should healthcare providers, researchers, and insurers be able to engage in sex discrimination for religious reasons? HHS asked the public to weigh in on this question with regard to the ACA’s nondiscrimination provision.

The answer is no for three important reasons. First, the statute doesn’t allow additional exemptions. Not only is the text clear, but Congress also considered and rejected broader religious exemptions. Second, authorizing sex discrimination for religious reasons is bad health policy with damaging effects for women and LGBT people. Third (as I argued in separate comments with a group of law and religion scholars), granting religious exemptions here runs into constitutional limits set by the Establishment Clause.

A Circuit Split on Contraceptives Coverage

September 18, 2015September 18, 2015 Holly Fernandez Lynch Leave a comment

Perhaps foreshadowed by the dissent in the 10th Circuit that I wrote about here, the 8th Circuit has now officially launched a circuit split regarding the legal validity of the accommodation that allows modified compliance/objection to the contraceptives coverage mandate. Unlike the seven other circuits to have considered the question since Hobby Lobby, the 8th Circuit yesterday issued opinions upholding preliminary injunctions in two cases (here and here), thereby preventing the mandate+accommodation from being enforced against the objecting non-profits.

First, the 8th Circuit determined that the accommodation still substantially burdens objectors’ religious beliefs because it imposes significant financial penalties if they refuse to comply with a requirement that they view as violative of those religious beliefs. As I explained previously, I do think the court was right to focus on the monetary consequences of objection, rather than assuming that merely filing the required paperwork for an accommodation does not or cannot actually make objectors complicit in the way they claim it does.

Like SCOTUS in Hobby Lobby, the 8th Circuit then went on to assume that the contraceptives coverage mandate advances a compelling government interest, which is the next step in the analysis under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act once the substantial burden test is met. So far, so good. But that’s the end of my agreement.

I Concur with the Dissent (or, More on Little Sisters)

September 14, 2015September 14, 2015 Holly Fernandez Lynch 1 Comment

On September 3, the 10th Circuit declined to rehear en banc several challenges to the contraceptives coverage mandate filed by non-profit organizations, including Little Sisters of the Poor. As SCOTUSBlog explains, these organizations had not themselves asked for en banc review, having already moved on to SCOTUS, but the judges have the option of calling for a vote themselves, which one or more of them must have done. The vote came down 7-5 in favor of refusal, with the dissenting judges (i.e., those who wanted en banc review) issuing an explanation of their position. On this issue, I concur with the dissent. But I still don’t think the objecting non-profits should be off the hook.

When it comes to the contraceptives coverage mandate, non-profits, and now certain for-profits, are accommodated such that they may be relieved of the responsibility to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for contraceptives coverage if they notify the government or their health insurer of their objection to doing so, such that their insurer (or third party administrator of self-insured plans) can provide free contraceptives to their employees, at no cost to and without the involvement of the employer (all further explained here by Greg Lipper). However, many organizations continue to argue that the accommodation fails to relieve them of complicity in providing contraceptives against their religious beliefs. They want flat out exemption from the mandate. Read More

A Reply to the Author of Cato’s Brief in the Little Sisters Contraception Case

September 4, 2015September 4, 2015 glipper Leave a comment

15146549078_d72e1da8b6_z — Flickr Creative Commons/WEBN-TV

By Gregory M. Lipper

Josh Blackman has replied to my post criticizing the Cato Institute’s amicus brief (which Josh coauthored) in support of the cert petition in the Little Sisters contraception case. My original post made two arguments: (1) if you take away the nonprofit accommodation, Hobby Lobby no longer supplies a rule of decision, because the presence of the nonprofit accommodation was what led the Court to conclude that RFRA barred the coverage requirement, and (2) if you prevent regulatory agencies from offering reasonable, tailored accommodations to their regulations, the result is bad for religious liberty.

Two brief comment on Josh’s reply.

First, on the question of agency authority to issue religious accommodations, Josh incorrectly suggests that I miss a subtelty in his argument. Josh/Cato say that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has authority to issue religious accommodations, but that it may not decide “which organizations were worthy of the exemption, and which would be burdened by the accommodation.” I address this argument in my original post: the Cato brief assumes that religious accommodations are all-or-nothing, but that is not how the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) works. RFRA details when accommodations are available and when they are not (and the Establishment Clause limits accommodations that unduly harm third parties). So an agency (HHS, or otherwise) cannot, as a practical matter, offer accommodations without determining who is eligible for that accommodation and who is not. As I said in my original post, Cato “would force agencies to choose between a bludgeon and no tools at all, even when the agency would need a scalpel to craft religious accommodations consistent with RFRA.”

When Law and Medical Ethics Conflict: The Case of Mohammad Allan

September 3, 2015September 3, 2015 maayans1 Leave a comment

By Maayan Sudai

Mohammad Allan was an administrative detainee in Israel, a Palestinian who had been hunger striking since June 16 to protest his indefinite incarceration. Allan’s health has been deteriorating gradually, and the latest examinations raised concerns that he suffered irreversible brain damage. The crisis in Allan’s health created a tangle for the Israeli government, since releasing Allan was feared to serve as a precedent that would encourage more hunger strikes and symbolize submission to this type of protest, whereas force-feeding him might be considered unethical-illegal torture. This dilemma has brought a head-on clash between Israeli government officials and the Israeli National Medical Association, and led to an internal split between medical professionals regarding their positions on the ethics of the controversial practice of force-feeding.

In the midst of Allan’s health deterioration, the Israeli parliament passed a new law called “Hunger Strike Damage Prevention Act” also known as the “force-feeding law”. The law allows doctors to force-feed prisoners in immediate and imminent danger of irreversible severe damage or death, with a court order. The court could allow such force-feeding after hearing the prisoner (if possible) and an ethics committee recommendation. Moreover, the forced feeding should be carried out in a dignified manner, avoiding pain and suffering for the prisoner. It was declared that physicians will not be forced to comply with force-feeding under this law if they refuse.

Interpreting Fiorina’s Comments on Vaccination Law

August 15, 2015August 15, 2015 mmeyer Leave a comment

By Michelle Meyer

I’ve started writing for Forbes as a regular contributor. My first piece, Carly Fiorina Says Her Views On Vaccines Are Unremarkable; For Better Or Worse, She’s Right, analyzes GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina’s recent ad hoc remarks on the relative rights of parents and schools with respect to vaccinations and to some of the hyperbolic reactions to those remarks. Fiorina’s remarks are ambiguous, in ways that I discuss. But, as the title of the article suggests, and for better or worse, I think that the best interpretation of them places her stance squarely in the mainstream of current U.S. vaccination law. I end with a call for minimally charitable interpretations of others’ views, especially on contentious issues like vaccination.

My Plan to Avoid the Ravages of Extreme Dementia

April 16, 2015April 16, 2015 ncantor 8 Comments

By Norman L. Cantor

The first signs of my friend Gertie’s descent into dementia were mild — confusion about days of the week and memory loss about recent events. These were troubling but understandable phenomena in my then 84 year-old friend. Aging inevitably entails some cognitive decline. Over time, though, her symptoms of mental deterioration worsened — disinterest in pursuits like reading and listening to music that had once occupied and entertained her, forgetting not just long-time friends, but even her devoted husband who had died years earlier, and obsessive repetition of certain thoughts and phrases. Now 89, Gertie barely recognizes the devoted caregivers around her. She cannot recall her distant or recent past, she no longer knows who or where she is. Gertie remains physically tenacious, with no life-threatening maladies. While dependent on assistance for dressing, eating, ambulating, bathing, and toileting, Gertie may continue in her mentally detached and dysfunctional limbo for years more.

I am determined to avoid Gertie’s fate. So I am now contemplating how to respond if and when I am diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s. My prime object is to avoid the precipitous mental deterioration accompanying advanced Alzheimer’s or similar dementia. My aversion is not based on prospective emotional distress and suffering. While some people in sharp mental decline may experience anxiety, frustration, embarrassment, confusion, or agitation, some, like Gertie, seem placid and indifferent to their debilitation. My aversion is grounded rather in my abhorrence of reduced mental function to a degree I deem intolerably demeaning. Such a status is unacceptable to me whether or not I would experience distress in a future demented state.

Keep in mind that I spent my work career as an academic. My personal satisfaction and self-image have flowed largely from intellectual functions like observation, reflection, and analysis. Inability to understand and process information is, for me, an intolerably undignified status. This preoccupation with future mental dysfunction reflects unwillingness to soil the lifetime image to be left with my survivors. I care mightily about posthumous recollections of my personality and I seek to shape my life trajectory (including a dying process) in a way that preserves a modicum of dignity. Read More

“Marlise’s Law”: Protecting the Autonomy and Dignity of Brain-Dead Pregnant Women

March 16, 2015March 16, 2015 Michele Goodwin 1 Comment

Allison M. Whelan, J.D.
Senior Fellow, Center for Biotechnology & Global Health Policy, University of California, Irvine School of Law
Guest Blogger

On March 12, 2015, Texas Representative Elliot Naishtat (Austin) filed HB 3183, which would repeal the Texas law that currently prohibits pregnant women from exercising their advance directives. The existing statute includes the following language: “I understand that under Texas law this directive has no effect if I have been diagnosed as pregnant.” The bill strikes this sentence and would allow health care providers and medical institutions to honor a woman’s wishes about end-of-life care.

The bill is known as “Marlise’s Law,” named for Marlise Muñoz of Fort Worth, Texas, who was kept on mechanical support for two months after she was declared brain dead in 2013. Muñoz collapsed in her home in November 2013 when she was 14 weeks pregnant. She was declared brain dead two days later but John Peter Smith Hospital said it was legally prevented from removing life support because she was pregnant. Read More

Category: Conscience