Code of Alabama - Title 22: Health, Mental Health, and Environmental Control - Section 22-8A-9 - Withholding or withdrawal of treatment, etc., not suicide; execution of advance directive not to affect sale, etc., of life or health insurance nor be condition for receipt of treatment, etc.; provisions of chapter cumulative

Section 22-8A-9 - Withholding or withdrawal of treatment, etc., not suicide; execution of advance directive not to affect sale, etc., of life or health insurance nor be condition for receipt of treatment, etc.; provisions of chapter cumulative.

(a) The withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment or artificially provided nutrition and hydration from a patient in accordance with the provisions of this chapter shall not, for any purpose, constitute a suicide and shall not constitute assisting suicide.

(b) The making of an advance directive for health care pursuant to this chapter shall not affect in any manner the sale, procurement, or issuance of any policy of life or health insurance, nor shall it be deemed to modify the terms of an existing policy of life or health insurance. No policy of life or health insurance shall be legally impaired or invalidated in any manner by the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment or artificially provided nutrition and hydration from an insured patient, notwithstanding any term of the policy to the contrary.

(c) No physician or other health care provider, and no health care service plan, health maintenance organization, insurer issuing disability or life or health insurance, self-insured employee welfare benefit plan, nonprofit medical service corporation, or mutual nonprofit hospital or hospital service corporation shall require any person to execute an advance directive for health care as a condition for being insured for, or receiving, health care services.

(d) Nothing in this chapter shall impair or supersede any legal right or legal responsibility which any person may have, under case law, common law, or statutory law, to effect the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment or artificially provided nutrition and hydration in any lawful manner. In such respect the provisions of this chapter are cumulative.

(e) Nothing in this chapter shall impair or supersede the jurisdiction of the circuit court in the county where a patient is undergoing treatment to determine whether life-sustaining treatment or artificially provided nutrition and hydration should be withheld or withdrawn in circumstances not governed by this chapter or to determine if the requirements of this chapter have been met.

(f) This chapter shall create no presumption concerning the intention of an individual who has not executed an advance directive for health care to consent to the use or withholding of life-sustaining treatment or artificially provided nutrition and hydration.

(Acts 1981, No. 81-772, p. 1329, §9; Acts 1997, No. 97-187, p. 281, §1.)

Last modified: May 3, 2021