Abstract
A thorough analysis of potential default mechanisms would be a complex and difficult undertaking. Such an undertaking is not the project of this paper. The point here is to begin an analysis which properly precedes the choice of a default mechanism. Until we understand the range of choices which a healthy competent person might rationally make when appointing a proxy for medical decisions, we cannot make much progress helping others to articulate their choices. The Patient Self Determination Act seeks to increase the use of advance directives and proxy appointments by hospital patients. This goal reflects a sense that these documents reliably represent a person's wishes. My analysis, however, suggests that the typical proxy appointer will not have been asked or have focused on the questions whose answers are necessary for this to be true. There is real work to be done.
Recommended Citation
White, Patricia D.
(1992)
"Appointing a Proxy Under the Best
of Circumstances,"
Utah Law Review: Vol. 1992:
No.
3, Article 6.
Available at:
https://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr/vol1992/iss3/6