Posted on behald of Jan Grossberg.
Last month Ms. Michelle Thomas
reported on a Jehovah's Witness that was barred from making medical decisions for his comatose wife. We are very happy to report that she has awakened! She was in a coma for a month and has now directed that her husband, Chris Nissen, act as her health care agent for any future medical decisions on her behalf. She further banned any family members from ever making any health care decisions on her behalf. An Iowa court had previously ordered that her father be appointed as her health care agent during the time she was comatose, despite the fact that the legal precedent has generally been that health care decisions may be made by a spouse in the event that a person is unable to speak for him or herself.
The issue in this case turned upon the fact that Chris Nissen is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. When Tawnya became unable to speak for herself, he asserted that his wife is also a practicing Witness whose wishes are that she not be given a blood transfusion under any circumstances. Unfortunately, Tawnya’s Advance Medical Directive card, which most Jehovah’s Witnesses carry, could not be located, and the court declined to assume that the husband’s assertions regarding his wife’s preferences actually reflected her true desires for her care. Tawnya’s father is not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and is critical of their Bible-based refusal to accept blood transfusions. He was able to obtain “limited guardianship” on the basis of his assertion that Tawnya’s life was being put at risk by her husband’s refusal to allow her to have a blood transfusion. The father claimed Tawnya had told him she would be willing to take a transfusion if it was necessary to save her life. Upon awakening, however, Tawnya confirmed that her husband had properly represented her wishes when he declined to allow her to be transfused (transfusion had been contemplated as potentially necessary to treat Tawnya’s condition, but it was never actually administered).
Two points emerge as significant in this guardianship conflict.- First, had Tawnya carried a current Advance Medical Directive and Durable Power of Attorney card, had the information it contains been made part of her medical record, and had she informed her family of her stand at the time she first prepared this legally binding document, this litigation would most likely have never occurred.
- Second, it is of interest, especially in the shadow of the recent Terri Schiavo case, that guardianship of a married, adult woman no longer residing in her father’s household was so readily awarded by the Iowa judge to her father, rather than remaining with the husband. In Terry Schiavo’s case, her parents fought unsuccessfully for over nine years to get a Florida court to remove her husband as guardian (especially when he had already started a new family with another “spouse”). In the Schiavo case the husband automatically became the health care proxy for his wife, and the courts there were loth to disturb that legal relationship. The law in most states appears to provide that, when a person cannot make his or her own medical decisions and does not have a medical directive, “next of kin” assumes authority to speak for the incapacitated individual. Does the law so radically differ in Iowa, or is it only different in the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses and decisions regarding blood transfusions? Under what theory of law did the Iowa court justify depriving Tawnya’s husband of guardianship?