On September 6,1989, a Georgia Superior Court judge ruled that a quadriplegic has the right to turn off his own ventilator so that he can die. The quadriplegic, Larry James McAfee, was paralyzed from the neck down in a 1985 motorcycle accident. An avid outdoorsman before his accident, Mr. McAfee, whose mental lucidity was unaffected by the accident, decided that his state of existence on a ventilator did not allow him to lead a life worth living.
The Georgia court should be commended for respecting McAfee’s decision, despite protestations by representatives of organizations for the handicapped, some of which decry the ruling as “an ominous state-sanctioned participation in ending a handicapped person’s life.” Such protestations are clearly not made on behalf of McAfee, who has emphatically stated his preference in the matter. Moreover, in alleging that the state is participating in ending McAfee’s life, such organizations confuse “participation” with “inaction.” In fact, the state properly has no power to act—to stop McAfee.
Most “right-to-die” cases involve patients who are incompetent to make their wishes known to the court or who cannot act to terminate their own lives. The United States Supreme Court, in July, 1989, agreed to hear an appeal by the parents of a 31-year-old Missouri woman who has been kept alive by medical technology despite devastating brain injuries suffered in a car accident more than six years ago. The woman’s parents wish to terminate the artificial sustenance of their daughter’s life, saying their daughter would not wish to be kept alive under such circumstances.
In the Georgia case, McAfee, a former civil engineer, helped a friend design a timing device he could activate with his mouth which would allow him to shut off his ventilator on his own. This was apparently done to exculpate medical personnel from civil or criminal liability. Clearly, where the individual is incapable of acting on his own behalf, the problem is more difficult. One must determine whether it is appropriate for another person to make the decision to terminate the incompetent’s life or to act in his behalf. Further, if artificial life support is necessary to sustain the incompetent’s life, one must question whether anyone has an affirmative legal obligation to provide such support and thus, whether the failure to do so is or is not legally wrongful. It will be interesting to see if the Supreme Court will address these aspects of the Missouri case, and if so, whether the Court is willing to implicate and penalize persons acting on behalf of incapacitated individuals, including medical personnel, for acting in any manner to terminate life support.
Copyright © The Association for Objective Law. All rights reserved. Republished in Capitalism Magazine by permission of TAFOL.
