Quality versus quantity of life: who should decide?

The issue of who should rightly decide quality versus quantity of life questions in health care contexts continues to receive widespread attention by health care professionals, academics and the laity. Unfortunately it is far from being resolved. Doctors still consider themselves the rightful, dominant decision-makers. There are many cases where patients' lives have been maintained by extraordinary means without their informed consent, sometimes against their explicit will. However as a better informed public begins to assert its rights, the doctor's role as primary decision-maker in health care is being increasingly questioned.