Judging Who Should Live: Schneiderman and Jecker on the Duty Not to Treat

Abstract

In this paper, I consider the thesis advanced by Lawrence J. Schneiderman and Nancy S. Jecker that physicians should be forbidden from offering futile treatments to patients. I distinguish between a version of this thesis that is trivially true and Schneiderman and Jecker's more substantive version of the thesis. I find that their positive arguments for their thesis are unsuccessful, and sometimes quite misleading. I advance an argument against their thesis, and find that, on balance, their thesis should be rejected. I briefly argue that a resolution of the debate about medical futility will require addressing deeper issues about value.