The Right to Die After Cruzan

Abstract

In June 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court decided its first right-to-die case, Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health. Writing under the auspices of the American Medical Association's Office of the General Counsel, Orentlicher sumarizes the Court's holdings in Cruzan, draws several inferences from the decision about the right to refuse medical treatment, and discusses Cruzan's implications for physicians and patients. Orentlicher concludes that while the Court "eschewed an expansive construction of the right to refuse medical treatment, its decision...enlarged the right in many respects without restricting it in other respects... In any situation in which withdrawal of treatment was permissible before the Cruzan case, withdrawal is permissible now...in some situations in which withdrawal was not permissible before the Cruzan case, withdrawal is permissible now."