Word: bouvia
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...marked contrast to the outcome of Bouvia's case, a New York Superior Court judge last week decided in favor of an 85-year-old man who wished to starve himself in a nursing home While the doctors have begun force-feeding Bouvia, the anonymous patient died Sunday. The New York judge's ruling, which mentioned the Bouvia case, was based on a number of differences between...
Citing the vast gulf between the patients' ages, he remarked that Bouvia had a far longer life expectancy, she had more to lose. This point may be questionable; another point seems out-rageous. Nothing that, despite his frailty, the elderly man still had full use of his arms, he decided that it was wrong to mandate that the nursing home staff force-feed him, because it would entail "physically restraining him for the rest of his life." Bouvia's case was different, he noted, because she is mostly paralyzed, and therefore cannot resist the doctors...
...from illnesses which, while not necessarily terminal, might further reduce the number of his remaining years. Also, the nursing home is a private institution which probably has subtly different obligations than that of Riverside General Hospital. Moreover, this man was evidently dependent upon the home for his care, while Bouvia voluntarily checked herself into Riverside last September, she did not want to continue her difficult life on her own after her separation...
Perhaps the greatest difference between the two patients' cases is what they were requesting from the respective institutions. While one wanted simply to be left alone, Bouvia was seeking active aid in her plan. Not only did she wish to starve, but she also requested that doctors administer painkillers while...
...What Bouvia is requesting is not a lethal injection, but it may be construed as equally wrong: because her doctors would be forced not only to witness, but also to hasten her suicide. And it is readily understandable that this would contradict many of the implications of the Hippocratic oatch on which their profession is based...