Do-Not-Resuscitate: Legal and Ethical Issues
Do-Not-Resuscitate: Legal and Ethical Issues Most cultures value life and bringing persons back from the dead is a popular subject of many fictional books. However, as technology evolves and the story of Frankenstein reborn with a bolt of lighting has come true with the external or implanted defibrillators, the natural process of death slows as much of society gains the knowledge to live longer than nature intended. The Red Cross Association taught many organizations like the girl and boy scouts the methods of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and Cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR, a manual manipulation of the heart, as life saving methods for drowning, electrocution or heart attacks. First aid for laypersons to save lives as well as doctors and no one is thinking that the person did not want to live after such an event. Thus, came the dawning of the provision of the do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order or provision stating not to initiate CPR if the individual is not breathing or the heart stops. Individuals wishing not to be resuscitated after clinical death can choose to place that advance directive in a living will as a do not resuscitate order directing that no CPR is to be attempted. The ideal of persons exercising their right to autonomy or their right to make decisions about healthcare before they are incompetent to do so is sound, but the DNR is burdened with controversy, complicated and emotionally charged. Eventually, the DNR directive became standard in hospice and end of life care, which led medical and state authorities to create and enforce clearly affirmed policies about when to delay or ensue with the action. In these policies, emphasis on the patient autonomy and surrogates for the patient can possibly take precedence over the decision of the doctor as a priority decision-maker, especially in the moments of impending death. During this time of incapacitation, the intentions of the patient are important in necessitating the
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