Conservatorship of Morrison

In this case we hold that a conservator can authorize the removal of a nasogastric feeding tube from a conservatee who is in a persistent vegetative state, but cannot require physicians to remove the tube against their personal moral objections if the patient can be transferred to the care of another physician who will follow the conservator’s direction. Louise Childs, as conservator of the person of Thelma Morrison, appeals from a judgment denying an injunction. We affirm.

Morrison, now 90 years old, has been a patient at Laguna Honda Hospital since 1979. She is in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), and the prognosis is that her condition will not improve.

A PVS patient has no mental functions. The eyes may be open at times, but the patient is “completely unconscious, i.e., unaware of him[self] or herself or the surrounding environment. Voluntary reactions or behavioral responses reflecting consciousness, volition, or emotion at the cerebral cortical level are absent.” (Cranford, The Persistent Vegetative State: The Medical Reality (Getting the Facts Straight) (1988) 18 Hastings Center Rep. 27, 28 (hereafter The Persistent Vegetative State).) The patient is incapable…