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Cal. Prob. Code § 4650

General Provisions

Known as the Health Care Decisions Law

The act spans §§ 4600–4806 (113 sections).

Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case 106 Cal. App. 4th 533 - In Re Christopher I. (2003)

Most recently applied in Alexander v. Scripps Mem'l Hosp. La Jolla (April 2018)

Added by Stats. 1999, Ch. 658, Sec. 39

How often courts cite this section

20032010201820
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

The Legislature finds the following:

(a) In recognition of the dignity and privacy a person has a right to expect, the law recognizes that an adult has the fundamental right to control the decisions relating to his or her own health care, including the decision to have life-sustaining treatment withheld or withdrawn.

(b) Modern medical technology has made possible the artificial prolongation of human life beyond natural limits. In the interest of protecting individual autonomy, this prolongation of the process of dying for a person for whom continued health care does not improve the prognosis for recovery may violate patient dignity and cause unnecessary pain and suffering, while providing nothing medically necessary or beneficial to the person.

(c) In the absence of controversy, a court is normally not the proper forum in which to make health care decisions, including decisions regarding life-sustaining treatment.

Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.