CHAPTER 137-J WRITTEN DIRECTIVES FOR MEDICAL DECISION MAKING FOR ADULTS WITHOUT CAPACITY TO MAKE HEALTH CARE DECISIONS
Advance Directives
Section 137-J:10
137-J:10 Criminal Act Not Construed or Authorized. –
I. The withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment pursuant to the provisions of this chapter shall at no time be construed as a suicide or murder for any legal purpose. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to legalize, constitute, condone, authorize, or approve suicide, assisted suicide, mercy killing, or euthanasia, or permit any affirmative or deliberate act or omission to end one's own life or to end the life of another other than to permit the natural process of dying. The withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment in accordance with the provisions of this chapter, however, shall not relieve any individual of responsibility for any criminal acts that may have caused the principal's condition.
II. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to condone, authorize, or approve:
(a) The consent to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment from a pregnant principal, unless, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, as certified in the principal's medical record by the attending practitioner and an obstetrician who has examined the principal, such treatment or procedures will not maintain the principal in such a way as to permit the continuing development and live birth of the fetus or will be physically harmful to the principal or prolong severe pain which cannot be alleviated by medication.
(b) The withholding or withdrawing of medically administered nutrition and hydration or life-sustaining treatment from a mentally incompetent or developmentally disabled person, unless such person has a validly executed advance directive or such action is authorized by an existing guardianship or other court order, or, in the absence of such directive, authorization, or order, such action is taken in accordance with the written protocol of a health care facility licensed under RSA 151 as applicable to its general patient population.
(c) The use of this chapter to authorize any health care decision rejected by the patient based primarily, substantially, or solely on a finding that the patient is not capable of making a health care decision because the patient has refused that procedure or therapy.
III. Nothing in this chapter shall impair or supersede any other legal right or responsibility which any person may have to effect life-sustaining treatment in any lawful manner; provided, that this paragraph shall not be construed to authorize any violation of RSA 137-J:7.
IV. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to revoke or adversely affect the privileges or immunities of health care providers or residential care providers and others to provide treatment to persons in need thereof in an emergency, as provided for under New Hampshire law.
V. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to create a presumption that in the absence of an advance directive, a person wants life-sustaining treatment to be either provided or withdrawn. This chapter shall also not be construed to supplant any existing rights and responsibilities under the law of this state governing the conduct of attending practitioners in consultation with patients, their surrogates, or legal guardians in the absence of an advance directive.