Legal Case Study

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Legal Case Study

HCS/478
July 17, 2011

Legal Case Study

The legal case study of Terri Schiavo is a controversial issue of a national debate over ethical decision-making and moral values. The media presents the headline news for over a decade starting in 1990 until her death in March 2005. The historic case of Terri Schiavo is one of the nation’s leading medical dilemmas. The bulimic patient suffering from a critically low potassium level subsequently experiencing a cardiac arrest from an ice tea diet is in the state of coma with a continual vegetative condition. In the beginning, the husband and parents of Terri agree with treatment, but the husband is the legal guardian, and later decides Terri is not going to continue to live in a manner that is against her belief systems (Kollas & Boyer-Kollas, 2006). Mister Michael Schiavo petitions the court to withdraw life-sustaining measures in May 1998 (Calabresi, 2006). The factors’ surrounding the case is in the hands of the Florida state court systems and eventually leads to the United States Congress (Calabresi, 2006). With the moral and ethical aspects of the case determining future implications with health care practices, legalities, and consequences have serious effects with the issue involving the case. The fundamental principles determine if the ethics are in breach of the laws. The effects with the future practice are ethically important.
Ethical Importance With Influences On Future Practice The nursing professional assesses the ethics with implications of all patients’ wishes regarding his or her values, predilections, and objections to the measures of sustaining life. The assessment of the implications to nursing with the Terri Schiavo case, demonstrates the need for health care education. Educating the patient and providing information about completing an advance directive is top

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