AEGiS-APPJ: AIDS and Living Wills AIDS & Public Policy JournalImportant note: Information in this article was accurate in 1990. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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AIDS and Living Wills

AIDS & Public Policy Journal 5, no. 4 (Winter 1990): 157-66
Catherine E.M. Kortlandt

In this article, the author will discuss the legal issues surrounding an AIDS patient's living will. The first part of the analysis will address natural death statutes and whether AIDS patients' living wills may be brought under that rubric. Next, the common law surrounding termination or withholding of treatment decisions will be surveyed and applied to AIDS patients. Regardless of whether a state has legislation recognizing living wills, as AIDS patients, like any other person, will always be better protected by a written and witnessed declaration of his or her treatment wishes. With minor exceptions, the problems an AIDS patient faces in executing and implementing a living will are not different from the problems confronted by other people. These difficulties can best be resolved by legislative action.
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