Abstract
INTRODUCTION
This Article will not attempt to address the entire range and complexity of the questions arising from the medical autonomy doctrine. To do so in finite space is as presumptuous as resolving the host of ethical, metaphysical, and jurisprudential issues related to eschatology. Rather, it is hoped that this Article will accomplish two tasks. First, it will undertake the rather mundane task of explaining in sufficient detail, so that the practitioner can make use of the explanation, the evolution of the right of medical autonomy, the federal act, and the state statutes passed by the 1992 Nebraska Legislature to implement and complement the right. Second, it will explore some particularly nettlesome policy problems which plague the area of patient self-determination to see whether the Patient Self-Determination Act and cognate state laws solve them, and, if they do not, to recommend specific change for future legislative sessions.