A judge has ruled that an “alert and conscious” adult woman does not have mental capacity because she disagrees with doctors who want to put her on a death pathway.
The Court of Protection concluded that the 19-year-old student, named only as ST for legal reasons, could not be trusted to make decisions for herself because she distrusted the medical advice of doctors who wish to move her from intensive care to palliative care.
Catholic bioethicists have denounced the court’s decision, however, as a “lethal form of paternalism”.
