ABSTRACT
Patient's 'right' to decide what treatment he or she wants in the final stages of life is especially topical at present, in the wake of Terri Schiavo's case. It is true that the law has increasingly acknowledged and given effect to patients' autonomy, including the right to make their own medical decisions, but only when the choice to be made is between one of a number of options offered by their medical carers. Competent, adult patients are clearly legally entitled to refuse treatment they do not want, or to choose to wait and see whether their condition improves without treatment. There are many cases that indicate that life-prolonging treatment may be lawfully withdrawn when doctors consider that it is not in the patient's best interests to continue to provide it. The treatment that is appropriate for a particular patient is a matter of clinical judgment, for the doctor to decide.
