New legislation (HB 1094) has been filed in Texas to overturn its unjust and cruel futile care law. If the law passes, rather than patients only having 10 days to find another institution if a star-chamber ethics committee rules that treatment shall not be provided, the wanted life-sustaining treatment will be required to continue until a new institution is found. Excellent. (It should also prevent hospitals from honoring the futile care determination of other institutions, but that can wait.)
Expect the bioethicists and medical intelligentsia to come out of the woodwork to fight this one. If they do, it will confirm my long held suspicion that the ultimate agenda of mainstream bioethics is not honoring patient autonomy. Rather, it is utilitarian-based health care rationing and the creation of at least an implied duty to die.
Stay tuned here at Secondhand Smoke for details as this important legislation moves forward.
HT: Jerri Ward
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