Department of law and ethics

Abstract

Physicians, courts, and the lay public have increasingly accepted the notion that, at least in the case of terminally ill patients, various medical procedures can be withdrawn in order to ease the dying process for the waning individual. The reported cases commonly have dealt with removal of respirators, chemotherapy, or dialysis-i.e., measures indisputably classifiable as “medical” in nature. An emerging issue is whether nutrition-through intravenous tubes, naso-gastro tubes, or basic oral administration-can also be withdrawn from the terminally ill. And if the answer is sometimes positive, the question becomes how this technique is relevant to various classes of patients, including comatose individuals, noncomatose but dying patients in the last throes of illness, senile or retarded persons with chronic degenerative diseases, and newborn infants with severe handicaps.