Disability / Health Care Issues / Death - Fun Stuff!

Disability/Heath Care Issues/Death: It is important to create an advance health care directive (in some jurisdictions this can be two separate documents: a living will and a limited health care power of attorney). This document dictates your wishes in the event you are unable to make your own decisions. This includes who you want to make such decisions.

We rarely want to think of such a time when we might be unable to make decisions, but life brings us unexpected events, including short-term small issues. Imagine you hit your head with ____ (fill in the blank based on your own clumsiness or accidents: car door, tree, cement/ground) and have a concussion and get knocked unconscious. It doesn't take much to knock one unconscious (I speak, however, from the perspective of going to law school, not medical school.. but I imagine based upon common experience).

Do you want to be cremated? Would you prefer to be embalmed? An advance health care directive can provide these details of your wishes. We can all agree that once we're dead, it's a lot more difficult to express our wishes. If we live in a place that respects our wishes, and our choices for spouse, then that spouse may be able to make those decisions for us, and it is less important to put those decisions into a directive. But what if you move?

There are two particular examples/illustrations that I found in the eighties and nineties that affected me.

Sharon Kowalski. In college, I read the book written by Karen Thompson and Julie Andrzejewski entitled Why Can't Sharon Kowalski Come Home? At the time I read it, the issue was still outstanding, although after eight years, Sharon was finally able to come home. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, I highly recommend finding out more about it.

From the Introduction:

"This book is about the lives of Karen Thompson and Sharon Kowalski, two women who fell in love and began to share their lives together. After four years of a committed and extremely closeted relationship, Sharon was hit by a drunk driver while driving to northern Minnesota on a cold November afternoon in 1983.

"Sharon's four-year old niece, Missy, and seven-year old nephew, Michael, were in the car with her. Missy died shortly after the accident. Michael recovered with few permanent injuries. Sharon, however, suffered a severe brain stem injury which left her with drastic and permanent damage. How drastic and how permanent is difficult to assess since it is the contention of this book that Sharon's recovery was and still is being detrimentally affected by efforts to remove Karen Thompson from her life.

"Sharon was initially in a coma and not expected to live. Karen Thompson literally spent every minute she could with Sharon, willing her to live and to recover. Later, Karen spent hours, weeks and months helping Sharon relearn basic movements and skills. When Sharon's family told Karen to discontinue visitation with Sharon, she sought advice from medical personnel and attorneys. Driven by fear of being separated from her lover, she revealed her relationship to Sharon's parents, praying that they would see that her love could make a difference in their daughter's recovery. When they reacted with anger and denial, Karen filed for guardianship, thus initiating an historic legal battle which continues to have far-reaching effects on disabled people, unmarried partners - regardless of sexual orientation - or any individual without a designated guardian of choice.

"This is also the story of parochial attitudes, bigotry, and institutionalized injustice. . . .

"And, finally, this is a story of growth and change in the person of Karen Thompson. Growing up with a naive belief in a just world, in a conventional protestant religion, and in the fairness of professionals, institutions and society, Karen developed a strong sense of commitment and principles. These characteristics eventually brought her full circle to question and challenge the very institutions which fostered them. . . ."

If These Walls Could Talk 2 - Story #1 - 1961

If anyone remembers this segment of the If These Walls Could Talk series, they probably more fondly remember the third story where a couple played by Ellen Degeneres and Sharon Stone try to have a baby together. But it was the first segment that stuck with me. In that one, a woman loses her lover she has shared her life and her home with for the past thirty years. She is excluded from the hospital, excluded from making decisions, and ultimately excluded from the home she's paid of the mortgage on over the past thirty years. Strangers come in start rifling through her belongings claiming a stronger legal right over her life than she has simply because they are blood. The disrespect and indignity of their actions stayed with me. And yet, by law, it was perfectly acceptable and legal.

These two stories, one non-fiction and one fictional both have stayed with me and have been the basis behind why I strongly believe that estate planning for same-sex partners is essential. In addition to planning for my own partner and myself, these are what drove me to want to practice in this area of the law.