1998
ABSENCE OF ADVANCE DIRECTIVE
765.401 The proxy.
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1999
ABSENCE OF ADVANCE DIRECTIVE
765.401 The proxy.
765.404 Persistent vegetative state.
765.404 Persistent vegetative state.—For persons in a persistent vegetative state, as determined by the attending physician in accordance with currently accepted medical standards, who have no advance directive and for whom there is no evidence indicating what the person would have wanted under such conditions, and for whom, after a reasonably diligent inquiry, no family or friends are available or willing to serve as a proxy to make health care decisions for them, life-prolonging procedures may be withheld or withdrawn under the following conditions:
(1) The person has a judicially appointed guardian representing his or her best interest with authority to consent to medical treatment; and
(2) The guardian and the person's attending physician, in consultation with the medical ethics committee of the facility where the patient is located, conclude that the condition is permanent and that there is no reasonable medical probability for recovery and that withholding or withdrawing life-prolonging procedures is in the best interest of the patient. If there is no medical ethics committee at the facility, the facility must have an arrangement with the medical ethics committee of another facility or with a community-based ethics committee approved by the Florida Bio-ethics Network. The ethics committee shall review the case with the guardian, in consultation with the person's attending physician, to determine whether the condition is permanent and there is no reasonable medical probability for recovery. The individual committee members and the facility associated with an ethics committee shall not be held liable in any civil action related to the performance of any duties required in this subsection.
History.—s. 33, ch. 99-331.
After they changed the law to include 765.404, they ruled that Terri was in PVS (even though there was plenty of evidence that she was not PVS) and then they could use the new law to dehydrate and starve her to death.
I’m glad you found it.
There was another change in the law which played a pivotal role in her murder. Nutrition and hydration were added to the list of extraordinary medical procedures which could be withheld or withdrawn. George Felos (the lawyer representing Terri’s estranged husband in his quest to kill her) lobbied to get that legislation through.
Do you remember when that legislation was passed, and whether Jeb was responsible for signing it?