The living will

Friday 5 November 2010

Someone once told me that everything we do, as individuals and as citizens, is politics. So, I decided to choose a topic that has been intensely discussed in the Assembly.


The living will is an advance health care directive in which the instructions for treatment of an individual are written, specifying what actions should be taken in his/her behalf when he/she is no longer able to make decisions due to illness or incapacity.

It was created in response to the increasing medical technology and also because studies diagnosed many problems related to the medical care of the dying. Besides, aggressive medical interventions leave millions of people confined to nursing homes. Others only survive through the use of feeding tubes and some are kept alive in permanently vegetative state.

A living will must portray the wishes of the patient and it should be constantly updated. It is only used if the individual has become unable to give informed consent about his state.

As a health directive it brings ethical issues related to the power and freedom of will and values related with the relationship between the patient and the (responsibility of the) doctor, and also the wishes of the loved ones.

I hope you like it. Daniela :)