Competency and common law: why and how decision-making capacity criteria should be drawn from the capacity-determination process.
Determining competence to request physician-assisted suicide should be no more difficult than determining competence to refuse life-prolonging treatment. In both cases, criteria and procedures should be developed out of the process of actually making capacity determinations; they should not be promulgated a priori. Because patient demeanor plays a critical role in capacity determinations, it should be made part of the record of such determinations through greater use of video- and audiotapes.
Baron
C H
CH
Boston College Law School, 885 Centre Street, Newton, Massachusetts 02459, USA. baron@bc.edu
D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D016743:Mental Competency / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000592:standards*; D009922:Oregon; D010820:Physicians; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D017236:Suicide, Assisted / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014743:Videotape Recording