Nora Harris signed an advance directive after her Alzheimer's diagnosis to prevent her life from being prolonged when her disease got worse. But she�s being kept alive with assisted eating and drinking against her stated wishes.
As I noted in the article, many states authorize either advance instructions for VSED or an appointed healthcare agent's direction for VSED. But the advance directive must provide such authorization with extraordinary clarity. Unfortunately, Harris' advance directive (like Margot Bentley's advance directive in a similar case) was not sufficiently clear that VSED was desired.
I have a few articles on VSED forthcoming in two medical journals. For my past legal analyses, see here, here, and here.
