Clashing Views on Advance Directives - Essay Example

Steven Luttrell and Ann Sommerville hold that decisions made by individuals in their health are binding in the case they become terminally ill or incapacitated. For this reason, they support practices of advance directives, arguing that they do not pose any risks to patients (Levine, 2009). This further implies that advance directives do not in any way limit the rights of patients. Patients have choices to make; meaning that those that do not wish to document their wishes at a time they are incapacitated can refrain from doing so.

Arguments against advance directives hold that patients at their health may lack adequate information about advance directives, and they may, therefore, make hasty decisions without necessarily knowing how they would react in an incapacitation situation. In such a circumstance, patients’ autonomy in the context of advance directives is questioned. However, Steven Luttrell and Ann Sommerville argue that patients and people in general always make decisions without necessarily having adequate information about a situation.

On the same note, judgment is used where experience lacks. Fundamentally, the directive cannot be implemented if the patient in his or her terminal illness changes his or her mind on earlier filed advance directives.