Schiavo case points to need for health-care proxies, living wills
By RICHARD LIEBSON
THE JOURNAL NEWS
Local lawyers and health advocates say the life-and-death decisions being debated in the Terri Schiavo case should serve as a reminder to people of the importance of drawing up living wills and health-care proxies.
“It’s definitely raising public awareness,” Peekskill lawyer Donald Singer said. He said he’s provided several clients with health-care proxies. “I’m sure people have been talking about it today and calling their lawyers and health-care providers about it.”
Marsha Hurst, director of Sarah Lawrence College’s health advocacy graduate program and a founder and vice president of the Westchester End-of-Life Coalition, said increased awareness could be one positive outcome of the Schiavo tragedy.
“Most people think a health-care proxy is for senior citizens, but many of the cases cited by the media involve young people,” Hurst said. “People tend to think that these things won’t happen to them, so they don’t prepare for it.”
Next month, the coalition will kick off a $5,000 “Everybody Needs a Proxy” publicity campaign, with a grant from the Community Fund of Bronxville, Eastchester and Tuckahoe, to persuade as many people as possible in the three communities to fill out and sign health-care proxies.
Although planning for the campaign began in the fall, Hurst said publicity surrounding the Schiavo case is driving the point home.
The New York State Health Care Proxy law allows people to appoint someone they trust, usually a family member or close friend, to make health-care decisions if they lose the ability to do so, including decisions on whether to remove or provide life-sustaining measures. Hospitals, doctors and other health-care professionals must adhere to the health-care agent’s decisions. Proxy forms, which are usually available at health-care facilities, allow health-care agents to be given as much or as little authority as an ill person wants.
A living will — a document in which health-care wishes are spelled out in the event a person becomes unable to make those decisions — is not provided for under state law, but is recognized by the courts to some extent.
“The proxy is provided by law, and the decisions made by designated health-care agents are normally followed,” said Kathleen Rosenthal, an Elmsford-based lawyer who teaches courses on wills and estates at Pace University Law School. “A living will, because it is only a written document, is open to interpretation and can be more easily challenged in court.”
Pleasantville lawyer Robin Sweeney said that while a living will does not override a proxy, it does give an overview of a person’s wishes.
“I feel that people should have both,” Sweeney said. “I recommend to my clients that they choose a proxy that knows them intimately — someone they can talk to about what their moral, spiritual, religious and physical beliefs are and who they trust to follow their wishes.”
While proxy and living will forms can be filled out without a lawyer, it’s recommended a lawyer review them.
“There are nuances that might not be fully understood without a lawyer,” Sweeney said. “This is serious business, and it bears a lot of responsibility.”
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(Original Publication: March 22, 2005)