Sorry to hear that. Thank you for letting me know.
Unlike the U.S. constitution, Florida's constitution expressly includes a right of privacy, and the Florida Supreme Court held in In re Browning that the right of privacy includes the right to refuse medical care, particularly life-sustaining medical care. Including a feeding tube. That's every Florida citizen's right.
Because this right is considered fundamental, by virtue of its inclusion in the constitution, it is not very difficult to exercise. Indeed, In re Browning decided that, for Floridians, the right could be exercised by a written or oral statement. If the right could be exercised only in writing, then it would be a weaker right, requiring you to jump through procedural hoops to exercise it. By comparison, a decision-making right that allows you to make a decision by announcing it is a stronger right. At least, that's the logic.
Now, if you can exercise this right orally, can an oral statement negate a prior written wish? Yes. In fact, if you read the facts of the Browning case, you will see that Estelle Browning had executed a document in which she declared she did not wish to be maintained by a feeding tube under certain circumstances, and the state government intervened in her case and argued that her written wishes should not be followed because it was possible that, later, she orally made a decision to the contrary.
Think about that. She said no to a feeding tube. The state embraced the notion she could have revoked that wish through oral statements and argued that because she may have done that, her written wishes should not be followed.
That didn't work -- the court made it clear that it would not indulge presumptions someone did or did not say something. But had such oral statements been made, and been proved, they could have controlled the outcome.
So, yes, written wishes regarding end-of-life care can be orally revoked. At least in Florida. They just need to be proved by clear and convincing evidence.
For those who would rather look at a statute than dwell on constitutional principles, take a look at the Florida statute that governs this area. Section 765.104(1)(c) explains that an advance directive -- including a living will -- or the designation of a health care surrogate decisionmaker may be revoked "[b]y means of an oral expression of intent to amend or revoke." Now, keep in mind that the statutes enacted by the legislature cannot conflict with the rights provided in the state constitution, but it is certainly meaningful to see that the legislature has affirmatively recognized the signicance of oral declarations.
Of course in writing the Law the State Legislature had to take into account Floridians constitutional right to privacy and although there is no express right to privacy in the Federal constitution, State Law makers had to also craft the laws around what the U.S. Supreme courts opinion was in CRUZAN v. DIRECTOR, MDH where JUSTICE O'CONNOR, wrote this opinion:
As the Court notes, the liberty interest in refusing medical treatment flows from decisions involving the State's invasions into the body. Because our notions of liberty are inextricably entwined with our idea of physical freedom and self-determination, the Court has often deemed state incursions into the body repugnant to the interests protected by the Due Process Clause. See, e.g., Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 172 (1952) ("Illegally breaking into the privacy of the petitioner, the struggle to open his mouth and remove what was there, the forcible extraction of his [497 U.S. 261, 288] stomach's contents . . . is bound to offend even hardened sensibilities"); Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891). Our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has echoed this same concern. See Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 772 (1966) ("The integrity of an individual's person is a cherished value of our society"); Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S. 753, 759 (1985) ("A compelled surgical intrusion into an individual's body for evidence . . . implicates expectations of privacy and security of such magnitude that the intrusion may be `unreasonable' even if likely to produce evidence of a crime"). The State's imposition of medical treatment on an unwilling competent adult necessarily involves some form of restraint and intrusion. A seriously ill or dying patient whose wishes are not honored may feel a captive of the machinery required for life-sustaining measures or other medical interventions. Such forced treatment may burden that individual's liberty interests as much as any state coercion. See, e.g., Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210, 221 (1990); Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 600 (1979) ("It is not disputed that a child, in common with adults, has a substantial liberty interest in not being confined unnecessarily for medical treatment").
The State's artificial provision of nutrition and hydration implicates identical concerns. Artificial feeding cannot readily be distinguished from other forms of medical treatment. See, e.g., Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, American Medical Association, AMA Ethical Opinion 2.20, Withholding or Withdrawing Life-Prolonging Medical Treatment, Current Opinions 13 (1989); The Hastings Center, Guidelines on the Termination of Life-Sustaining Treatment and the Care of the Dying 59 (1987). Whether or not the techniques used to pass food and water into the patient's alimentary tract are termed "medical treatment," it is clear they all involve some degree of intrusion and restraint. Feeding a patient by means of a nasogastric tube requires a physician to pass a long flexible tube through the patient's nose, throat and esophagus and into the stomach. Because of the discomfort such a tube causes, " many patients need to be restrained forcibly, and their hands put into large mittens to prevent them from removing the tube." Major, The Medical Procedures for Providing Food and Water: Indications and Effects, in By No Extraordinary Means: The Choice to Forgo Life-Sustaining Food and Water 25 (J. Lynn ed. 1986). A gastrostomy tube (as was used to provide food and water to Nancy Cruzan, see ante at 266) or jejunostomy tube must be surgically implanted into the stomach or small intestine. Office of Technology Assessment Task Force, Life-Sustaining Technologies and the Elderly 282 (1988). Requiring a competent adult to endure such procedures against her will burdens the patient's liberty, dignity, and freedom to determine the course of her own treatment. Accordingly, the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause must protect, if it protects anything, an individual's deeply personal decision to reject medical treatment, including the artificial delivery of food and water.
Fl. Law was crafted to pass constitutional muster at the State and Federal level and succeeded...as was shown in the Schiavo case. Progressives should quit trying to use Fl. as their "issues" battleground.
They always end up looking foolish. Just ask Algore.