Legal Implication of the Living Will in the National Health Act 2007

Abstract

The right to make a living will, which appears in the National Health Act 2007, seems more like the right to self-determination for an individual, but it is actually used and construed in a narrower way than it should. This structure is more useful for the purposes of public health management than for promoting the rights of individuals, but it still cannot solve the core problems of public health management. The perceived objective of the living will as a tool to promote the rights of individuals and their autonomy does not appear to be correct.

According to the study, autonomy is assessed as being inferior to the legal norm, which is also referred to as the social norm. Whether a specific fact in the social judgement is true or false, right or wrong, depends on the network of power and knowledge of authorities which interact with one another to produce a regime of truth as a result. The legal system is one such authority that significantly affects the rights of self-determination issues in society. This study about living will show that there are gaps in the usage and construction of law which can be improved in order to promote the rights of individuals more effectively