31-32-14. Effect of chapter on other legal rights and duties.

Nothing in this chapter shall impair or supersede any legal right or legal responsibility which any person may have to effect the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures or the withholding or withdrawal of the provision of nourishment or hydration in any lawful manner.#

Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to condone, authorize, or approve mercy killing or to permit any affirmative or deliberate act or omission to end life other than to permit the process of dying as provided in this chapter. Furthermore, nothing in this chapter shall be construed to condone, authorize, or approve abortion.#

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 or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures or the withholding or withdrawal of the provision of nourishment or hydration in the event of a terminal condition or state of permanent unconsciousness.#

Except to the extent provided in an advance directive for health care and subject to the health care agent’s duty to exercise granted powers in such manner as the health care agent deems consistent with the intentions and desires of the declarant pursuant to subsection (b) of Code Section 31-32-7, a declarant’s directions in an advance directive for health care regarding the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures or the withholding or withdrawal of the provision of nourishment or hydration shall be ineffective as long as there is a health care agent available and willing to make decisions for and on behalf of the declarant regarding the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures or the withholding or withdrawal of the provision of nourishment or hydration when the declarant is in a terminal condition or state of permanent unconsciousness.#

Unless an advance directive for health care provides otherwise, a health care agent who is known to a health care provider to be available and willing to make health care decisions for a declarant has priority over any other person, including any guardian, to act for the declarant in all matters covered by the advance directive for health care.#

Nothing in this chapter shall affect the delegation of a parent’s power to control the health care of a minor child.#

With respect to mental health care, nothing in this chapter shall supersede the duties and responsibilities of a mental health care agent under Chapter 11 of Title 37 or the terms of a psychiatric advance directive executed by the declarant before, simultaneously with, or after the advance directive for health care under which the health care agent is acting.#