Salient Points With Regard To Pennsylvania Laws Regarding Living Wills
According to Pennsylvania laws regarding living wills, any adult who is capacitated has the legal right to make his own decisions regarding accepting, rejecting or discontinuing medical treatment and care. However, under certain circumstances it may not always be possible for an individual to make his desires known to the doctors attending to him and thus it behooves for him to make a living will to take care of such an eventuality.
Changes To The Laws
In fact, Pennsylvania laws regarding living wills underwent a recent change in January 2007 and this change in the Pennsylvania laws regarding living wills makes provisions for a new legal framework regarding health care representatives and agents, living wills as well as out-of-hospital refusal of resuscitation. Prior to this change in the Pennsylvania laws regarding living wills, there was needed to make only a medical declaration though now that the laws have been changed, one can make a living will in place of the earlier medical declaration.
It means that the living will contain the declarant's instructions and wishes in regard to the type of health care as well as directions for health care that will kick in when such person becomes incompetent to give directions on his own. Thus, according to the new Pennsylvania laws regarding living wills, the term ‘end stage medical condition' replaces the previous ‘terminal condition' and thus provides the person creating the living will with a lot more power in laying down how medical care as well as treatment will be executed and it also makes it more flexible with regard to specific desires with regard to following procedures of life sustaining nature.
Other salient aspects of the new Pennsylvania laws regarding living wills include deciding who may act as the health care representative who in any case, should be a person of sound mind, or it could be the spouse, adult child, parent or other designated competent person.
Other aspects to Pennsylvania laws regarding living wills include stating who can make such a will, the power to revoke the will, and the need to sign the living will by the declarant in order for the living will to have legal value. In fact, the declarant must be anybody who is of sound body and who is eighteen years or more and who is at least a high school graduate or who is married. In addition, the declaration made in the living will has to be signed by the concerned person, also known as declarant, or by someone on behalf of the declarant provided they do so according to the directions given by the declarant.
Finally, for the living will to be considered valid, according to Pennsylvania laws regarding living wills, it should also be witnessed by a person though the witness cannot be anyone that has signed the declaration. There is one exception with regard to the living will and that is, according to Pennsylvania laws regarding living wills when it concerns pregnant mothers that are terminally ill. Such women must get treatment for sustaining their lives till such time as the baby is born.
