Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 1978
ISSN
1073-1105
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Language
en-US
Abstract
In what may prove to be the most controversial medicolegal decision of the year, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that, in certain cases, courts are the proper forum in which life-sustaining medical decisions should be made.1 The controversy goes deep. It involves questions of who should make life-prolonging decisions, in what forum, and on what criteria. Until the last few years, these questions arose almost exclusively in the context of Jehovah's Witnesses cases - cases in which life-saving blood transfusions were being refused for religious reasons. But with society's increasing consciousness about the way people die in hospitals, medical decisions are increasingly coming under public scrutiny.
Recommended Citation
George J. Annas,
Judges at the Bedside: The Case of Joseph Saikewicz
,
in
6
Medicolegal News
10
(1978).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3524
