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Mackay Dressler Law Firm

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Terri Schiavo Life & Remembrance Day – March 31

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Hello, everybody. My name is Miranda Dressler, attorney with MacKay Dressler Law Firm, located in Petaluma, California. And coming up this month, on March 31st, is Terri Schiavo Remembrance Day. And for those of you who are maybe my age or older, you may remember that case that happened in the 90s, where Terri Schiavo was in an accident.

She was basically in a persistent vegetative state. And there was a huge court battle between her husband and her parents that went on for really years because Terri had had no documented, you know, decision makers around her health decisions, hadn’t written down legally what she would want to have happen with her health care in a situation like that. And so, because there was no written instruction, there was a huge dispute over whether her feeding tube should be removed or not, and it led to years of contention, lawsuits, et cetera.

So really, what this case should remind us of is how important it is to make sure that our wishes, particularly around healthcare decisions, are known. Not only known, but are legally documented in something like an advanced healthcare directive where you appoint someone to step in as a healthcare decision maker on your behalf if you ever became unable to make those decisions for yourself. And it’s also a place where you can kind of give instructions for what you would want to have happen in certain circumstances, like if you got into such an accident. You know, would you want to be kept alive no matter what? Or would you want to, you know, your family or whoever your decision maker is, to let you pass? So really just underlines how important it is to have such a document in place, and everyone should have a document like that.

So, thank you for watching today. If you like this and our other videos, you can like us, you can subscribe to us, and check out our other video blogs that we have on this site. Thank you.

Miranda Dressler
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