ABSTRACT

Aer Cowart was released from the hospital he became a successful attorney and advocate for the “right-to-die” movement. His case has since been considered one of the best examples of the importance of patient autonomy and the destructive power of physician paternalism (Kliever 1989). is case and others like it challenged the widely held view that because sick patients do not have as much information about their health as do their doctors, they are not rational enough to make health-care decisions on their own behalf. e overriding ethos prior to this time was that patients should be treated with paternalism and the benevolent protection provided by their wiser, more experienced physicians (Beauchamps and Childress 2009), but from this time forward both legal and medical decision making moved steadily toward a more patient-centered approach.