Whether the new directive will be honored in New York – or anywhere else – is unclear. Legal scholars and ethicists say directives withdrawing oral assisted feeding are prohibited in several states. Many care facilities are unlikely to cooperate, said Thaddeus Pope, director of the Health Law Institute at Hamline University, St. Paul, Minn., and an expert on end-of-life law. Doctors have a duty to honor patient wishes, but they can refuse if they have medical or moral qualms.
“Even solidly legal advance directives do not and cannot ENSURE that wishes are respected,” Pope said in an email. “They can only ‘help assure’ that.”
Directors at End of Life Choices New York consider the document “legally sturdy,” Schwarz said, adding, “Of course it’s going to end up in court.”
Whether assisted feeding can be withdrawn was at the center of recent high-profile cases in which patients with dementia were spoon-fed against their documented wishes because they continued to open their mouths. In a case in Canada, a court ruled that such feeding is basic care that can’t be withdrawn.