Reply #16: check this article next. maybe the lawyer isn't thinking far enough ahead [View All]

and it will be MORE PROFITABLE for lawyers now that this is going on in Florida.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-bzwill1023,0,4203757.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines

A Second Look at Living Wills
By James Bernstein
Staff Writer
October 22, 2003, 9:44 PM EDT


Frances Mancini intended Wednesday only to draw up an ordinary will instructing how her estate should be split up. But then she and her lawyer talked about what happened in Florida to Terri Schiavo. Late Tuesday, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ordered doctors to continue feeding the comatose woman over the objections of her husband.

Mancini, 81, a widow from Valley Stream, decided she did not want that to happen to her if she become incapacitated and unable to communicate what she wanted. So Mancini also drew up a living will, expressing the wish to "just let me go" without being kept alive by hospital machinery. "I always used to joke with the kids, 'If I get that bad, step on the hose.'"

Mancini wasn't the only one confronting that question Wednesday. Lawyers in the New York region said they were fielding calls from clients worried about whether their final wishes to die without extraordinary medical care would be carried out if they fell ill in Florida or other states.

Lawyers said many of their clients have drawn up only New York health care proxies, which allow for the appointment of an "agent" to decide about treatment if they cannot decide for themselves. But New York proxies may not be valid outside of this state, the lawyers said, adding that a "living will" that explicitly spells out a person's wishes would have more legal force.
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