Texas Advance Directives Act: Nearly a Model Dispute Resolution Mechanism for Intractable Medical Futility Conflicts
QUT Law Review 16(1) (2016): 22-53
32 Pages Posted: 8 Dec 2015 Last revised: 12 Mar 2016
Date Written: October 15, 2015
Abstract
Increasingly, clinicians and commentators have been calling for the establishment of special adjudicatory dispute resolution mechanisms to resolve intractable medical futility disputes. As a leading model to follow, policymakers both around the United States and around the world have been looking to the conflict resolution provisions in the 1999 Texas Advance Directives Act (‘TADA’).
In this article, I provide a complete and thorough review of the purpose, history, and operation of TADA. I conclude that TADA is a commendable attempt to balance the competing goals of efficiency and fairness in the resolution of these time-sensitive life-and-death conflicts. But TADA is too lopsided. It is far more efficient than it is fair. TADA should be amended to better comport with fundamental notions of procedural due process.
Keywords: medical futility, end-of-life, due process, TADA, non-beneficial treatment, bioethics, health law
JEL Classification: K32, I18
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation