Advance Treatment Directives

Re “Wishes Aren’t Evidence,” editorial, Aug. 14: The California Supreme Court made clear that Robert Wendland’s wishes were very important and that they would be evidence. For the court, the problem was that Wendland hadn’t been clear enough about his wishes so that his family could prove what his wishes were.

Two and one-half million Americans die each year. For many, the months or days preceding death involve incapacity and a loss of control over decisions about their own care. They need others to make decisions for them. Families and friends make those decisions. Their job is to follow the wishes of the person who has become incapacitated.

Even though it denied Rose Wendland’s request, the court ruling confirmed the utility and effectiveness of advance legal documents such as the power of attorney for health care. It also confirmed the value of communicating wishes and values to those who will help us.

The needed legal and communication tools are readily available. The California Medical Assn.’s health care power of attorney form and similar forms are available through hospitals, doctors, attorneys and elsewhere. A plain-language communication tool called “Your Way” is available free from H.E.L.P. through its Web site, https://www.help4srs.org, or by calling (310) 533-1996.

If Robert Wendland had planned ahead and had solid discussions with his family about his wishes and values, his family’s eight years of anguish could have been avoided. We owe it to our families and friends to help them avoid the Wendland family’s pain. We need to plan and to communicate.

Ed Long

Executive Director

H.E.L.P., Torrance

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Your editorial is to be commended for highlighting the responsibility of each of us to make known in writing our wishes for medical care and the withholding or withdrawal of treatment. However, I do have one quibble. In the right-to-die debate the word “protect” is often used very vaguely while retaining its emotional overtones. Your editorial said the court had to protect Wendland’s life in the absence of evidence of his desires. In what sense was the court protecting Wendland’s life? What life, outside of a beating heart, breathing lungs and a nearly unconscious brain, was being protected? Isn’t it possible that Wendland, if he could have spoken, would have said he wasn’t being protected, he was being tortured?

George E. Delury

Goleta