The patient's right to decline medical treatment: the New York view

This article, which I am pleased to dedicate to my friend, Professor Josephine Y. King, deals with the evolving caselaw in the State of New York concerning a patient's right to decline medical treatment. New York, like many other states, has been struggling with cases involving this troublesome area of the law. The New York State Court of Appeals consistently expressed the belief that these cases are best resolved by the Legislature and that the court's role should be limited to deciding only the cases which come before it. As a result of the court's persistence in this regard, the New York State Legislature has recently enacted certain statutes which have gone far toward resolving the myriad of problems presented by these cases. It has enacted laws which allow a patient to provide that he or she is not to be resuscitated and has allowed an individual to execute a form of proxy which permits a surrogate to make these decisions in the event the patient is incompetent to do so.