Surrogate Decision Making Essay

Sometimes, incompetence becomes uncontroversial, as in the case of patients who are in an advanced state of dementia or in an extreme vegetative state. But controversy arises when we speak of the competence of a child. According to Wilkinson (2015), the standard grounds set to decide the capacity of an adult to make decisions, should not be so strict in cases of children. Normally, children under sixteen years of age are barred from making their own decisions. Scholars have raised questions on this matter. Children do not have the privilege to choose their options; rather they have to accept decisions, made by others, good or bad whatever it might be. Generally, legal institutions like courts decide whether a person is competent or not. But in most instances, we can see it is the family members who decide on behalf of the supposedly incompetent patient.
A patient can lose his competence permanently or temporarily. In such cases, it is the family members, close relatives, or other close persons who take the decision on behalf of the patient. This is simply called surrogate decision making. Surrogate decision making needs to follow some specific norms and process in a certain framework as has been described by Brock (1991). The first thing to consider in this regard is whether the patient has any advance directive. An advance directive is a legally written statement related to the patient's choice on who should determine the treatment process if the patient becomes incompetent of decision making. But many states do not consider such directives. Moreover, such living wills have certain limitation. Because they often fail to make a way through an ambiguous situation that needs reasoning. The will describes the patient's wish, but it needs analytical consideration. The second condition of this framework comes to action when there are no advance