A Living will is meant to inform others what medical treatment you want in the event that you become permanently unconscious or terminally ill and are unable to make or communicate decisions regarding treatment. All but three states, MA, MI and NY, have enacted living will laws aimed at protecting a patient's right to refuse medical treatment. In most states, a living will is a legally enforceable document and can insure that a doctor who follows the patient's wishes will not incur any liability.
Even if you live in one of the states without living will laws this document is still useful to a judge when trying to decide what an unconscious patient would desire.
A Living Will is a legally binding document in which you, as a competent adult, can express your desires concerning your future health care. It is used by people who want to express their wishes about the withholding or the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment that prolongs the process of dying. Many people want to make their objection to unwanted medical measures in advance clear; others wish to state that they would prefer the proper steps be taken to have all available kinds of life-sustaining treatment administered.
A Living Will is meant to foresee the time in your life wherein you might be in a terminal or irreversible physical or mental condition, with no reasonable expectation of recovery. Your instructions are usually intended to apply if you are in any of the following states: a) in a terminal condition; b) permanent vegetative state or conscious but with irreversible brain damage and will never regain the ability to make decisions and express your wishes.
What should be included in your Living Will?
A Living Will should express your general desires, while at the same time be as specific as one can express. If you have specific wishes or desires as to types of medical treatment you would what provided under certain circumstances, it is important to spell them out both in the document itself. A few examples of specific matters that you might cover in your living will are your desires concerning:
- pain medicine
- antibiotics
- mechanical respiration
- cardiac resuscitation
- artificial nutrition and hydration
