Deciding whether to withhold and/or withdraw life-sustaining treatment from a critically ill,
technologydependent patient raises some of the most difficult ethical issues. 1 When facing …

Withholding and withdrawing treatment are widely regarded as ethically equivalent in
medical guidelines and ethics literature. Health care personnel, however, widely perceive …

The right to refuse medical intervention is well established, but it remains unclear how best
to respect and exercise this right in life support. Contemporary ethical guidelines for critical …

The majority of deaths on the intensive care unit now occur following a decision to limit life-
sustaining therapy, and end-of-life decision making is an accepted and important part of …

Many medical ethicists accept the thesis that there is no moral difference between
withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining therapy. In this paper, we offer an interesting …

With few exceptions, the literature on withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment
considers the bare fact of withdrawing or withholding to lack any ethical significance. If …

Withdrawing life-supporting technology from patients who are irremediably ill is morally
troubling for caregivers, patients, and families. Interventions that enable clinicians to delay …

The recognition of the ethical and legal appropriateness of withholding or withdrawing life-
sustaining medical treatment is now ingrained as an essential part of the medical decision …

When patient or family requests for continued life‐sustaining treatments conflict with doctor
recommendations, different conclusions as to what is beneficial for the patient may arise …

Bioethicists have long argued against making a distinction between the ethical acceptability
of withholding versus withdrawing treatment [1]. The modern secular consensus was …