Research On The Living Will Implementation Mechanism In The United States

Since the 20 th century, with the dramatic increase in medical technology, life can be significantly prolonged, but it also makes people aware that indefinitely accepting life-sustaining treatment can only prolong death in vain. People began to give more attention to the quality and dignity of life, so came the living will. Living will allows people to record their refusal to accept additional treatments in advance, so as to prevent that they can’t make medical decisions if they enter into the state of unconsciousness. As people have the right to refuse treatment, living will system provides legal basis for people to choose a dignified death.Since the concept of living will first appeared in 1969, so far, 50 states and the District of Columbia of United States have all passed related legislations on living will. After decades of development, the United States living will system has been gradually improved. The author analyzes the implementation issues about living will, involving the premise of implementation,the process of implementation and the liability of implementation. This paper contains the introduction, body and conclusion, of which the body is divided into three parts:The first part is the implementation premise of living will. This part is mainly to define what elements an effective living will needs to have, including subject element, form element and content element, and analyze the revocation of living will.The second part is the implementation process of living will,which starts from when living will becomes effective, mainly related to who identifies the entry into force and theparticular circumstances of pregnant women. When living will begins to take effect, it comes to the issues like who will implement and how to implement.The third part is the implementation liability of living will. Living will legislations have set obligations for the subject who implements the wills. When the subject can not fulfill the obligation, he shall bear the related liability, there are criminal, civil and professional sanctions.But his objective for failing to fulfill the obligation is to extend a patient’s life, based on the protection of the right to life, there are immunities in the liability.