Disproportionate treatment is medical treatment “burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome”, and stopping it “can be legitimate”, being “the refusal of ‘over-zealous’ treatment”. In stopping it “one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted”. The decision belongs to “the patient if he is competent and able” and otherwise to those legally entitled to act for him. What is asked is whether the means “are objectively proportionate to the prospects for improvement”. Even when death seems imminent, “the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted”.
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