The Limits of Surrogates' Moral Authority and Physician Professionalism: Can the Paradigm of Palliative Sedation Be Instructive?

It is impossible to declare that patients have a core interest in being free of suffering, that palliative sedation is sometimes necessary to relieve suffering, and that if the patient has lost decision-making capacity, then palliative sedation can be administered only with the consent of the surrogate. The clash of these demands highlights the vagueness and confusion around surrogates' moral authority.