Tallahassee, FL--The Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA) was signed into law to provide patients admitted into health care facilities with two basic concepts--health care decision-making rights, and the facility's policies in regard to recognizing advance directives.
The advance directive is the legal document which allows your guardian to make health care decisions when you are unable to speak for yourself. Examples are whether you want a ventilator, resuscitated, and lately, starved and dehydrated to death.
Legal And Ethical Considerations
When there were alleged ethics violations concerning Pinellas County probate judge George W. Greer of the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court, attorney general Charlie Crist didn't seem concerned.
And Crist didn't seem concerned when there were alleged campaign finance and elections law violations in Greer's reelection campaign.
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Since the court-sanctioned death of Florida’s Terri Schiavo, the conversational media and written press have predictably and (almost) obediently echoed sentiments of self-proclaimed bioethicists in touting living wills as a measure to ensure that one’s own autonomy and personal directives are observed and held fast to in times of medical crisis.
Using the unfortunate Terri Schiavo as their unconsenting poster child, a good many media outlets and bioethics ‘experts’ have screamed from the rooftops that no one should ever allow a fate such as hers to befall them. In other words, sign your life away now so that no one can fight for it later, should you become unable to speak for yourself.
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