We Have the Right to Choose -OUR RIGHT IS RECONGNIZED

In many places today, the patients has an inviolable right to decide what treatment he will accept. "The law of informed consent has been based on two premises: first, that a patient has a right to receive sufficient  information to make an informed choice about the treatment recommended; and second, that the patient may choose to accept or decline the physician's recommendation. . . .  Unless patients are viewed has having the right to say no, as well as yes, and even yes with conditions, much of the rationale for informed consent evaporates." -Informed Consent-Legal Theory and Clinical Practice, 1987.

United States: "Underlying the necessity for patient consent is the ethical concept of individual autonomy, that decisions about one's own fate should be made by the person involved.  The legal ground for requiring consent is that a medical act performed without the patient's consent constitutes battery." - Informed Consent for Blood Transfusion, 1989. 

Germany: "The patient's right of self-determination overrides the principle of preservation of life.  As a result: no blood transfusion against the will of the patient." - Herz Kreislauf, August 1987. 

Japan:  "There is no 'absolute' in the medical world.  Doctors believe that the course of modern medicine is the best and follow its course, but they should not force every detail of it as an 'absolute' on patients. Patients too must have freedom of choice." -Minami Nihon Shimbun, June 28, 1985. 

Some patients have encountered resistance when they have tried to exercise their right. It might have been from a friend having strong feelings about a tonsillectomy or about antibiotics.  Or a physician might have been convinced of the rightness of his advice.  A hospital official might even have disagreed based on legal or financial interests. 

"Many orthopaedists elect not to operate on [Witness] patients," says Dr. Carl L. Nelson.  "It is our belief that the patient has the right to refuse any type of medical therapy.  If it is technically  possible to provide surgery safely while excluding a particular treatment, such as transfusion, then it should exist as an option." -The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, March 1986.

A considerate patient will not pressure a physician to use a therapy at which the doctor is unskilled .  As Dr. Nelson noted, though, many dedicated physicians can accommodate the patient's beliefs.  A German official advised:  "The doctor cannot refuse to render aid . . . reasoning that with a Jehovah's Witness not all medical alternatives are at his disposal.  He still has a duty to render assistance even when the avenues open to him are reduced."  (Der Frauenarzt, May-June 1083)  Similarly, hospitals exist not merely to make money but to serve all people without discrimination.  Catholic theologian Richard J. Devine states:  "Although the hospital must make every other medical effort to preserve the patient's life and health, it must ensure that medical care does not violate  [his] conscience.  Moreover, it must avoid all forms of coercion, from cajoling the patient to obtaining a court order to force blood transfusion." - Health Progress, June 1989. 

Next time: We Have the Right to Choose - RATHER THAN THE COURTS

From the jw.org publications