Abstract
When the statute respects a patient's right to refuse every medical treatment, although that refusal will ultimately result in the person's death, can a patient refuse treatment on the grounds of his religious belief, or can a doctor carry out medical treatment against a patient's will? In France, this issue remained unsettled until recently. On March 4, 2002 the Patients' Rights Act was enacted and a medical treatment veto as a patient's right was put forward in a new form. On August 16, 2002, however, the Conseil d' Etat has ruled that a doctor did not infringe on a patient's personal autonomy, if transfusion action had satisfied some requirements. By this judgment, a patient's personal autonomy became the "decreasing fundamental freedoms (liberte fundamentale en demi-teinte)". In relation to the Medical Profession Ethics Code (Code de deontologie medicale), doctors still sit in a sensitive position, and this Act was able to override the judicial precedents of the Conseil d' Etat. This paper will argue that this judgment should not be extended to other cases of treatment refusal in consideration of the recent development of patient's rights which the French medical law has treated so far.
