Chapter 5.A.1 (or 3.A.1) The Competent Patient

The State's Interest in Preserving Life, note 4

In In re Duran, a 34 year-old mother of two teenage children needed a liver transplant. Before the transplant, the patient executed a durable power of attorney for health care in which she wrote

I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses. On the basis of my firmly held religious convictions, see Acts 15:28, 29, and on the basis of my desire to avoid the numerous hazards and complications of blood, I absolutely, unequivocally and resolutely refuse homologous blood (another person's blood) and stored autologous blood (my own stored blood) under any and all circumstances, no matter what my medical condition. This means no whole blood, no red cells, no white cells, no platelets, and no blood plasma no matter what the consequences. Even if health-care providers (doctors, nurses, etc.) believe that only blood transfusion therapy will preserve my life or health, I do not want it. Family, relatives or friends may disagree with my religious beliefs and with my wishes expressed herein. However, their disagreement is legally and ethically irrelevant because it is my subjective choice that controls. Any such disagreement should in no way be construed as creating ambiguity or doubt about the strength or substance of my wishes.

After the liver transplant, the patient did not do well, and her doctors recommended a blood transfusion to help prolong her life. The patient's husband obtained a court order for the transfusion, which was administered, even though the transfusion violated the patient's directions in her durable power of attorney and even though the husband was not the person appointed by the patient as her proxy under the durable power of attorney. (The patient died anyway a few weeks later.)

The superior court held that the court of common pleas had erred in granting the husband's request for a blood transfusion.

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