Terms Used In South Carolina Code 44-77-90

  • Life-sustaining procedures: means any medical procedures or intervention which would serve only to prolong the dying process and where, in the judgment of the attending physician, death will occur whether or not the procedures are utilized. See South Carolina Code 44-77-20
  • Permanent unconsciousness: means a medical diagnosis, consistent with accepted standards of medical practice, that a person is in a persistent vegetative state or some other irreversible condition in which the person has no neocortical functioning, but only involuntary vegetative or primitive reflex functions controlled by the brain stem. See South Carolina Code 44-77-20
  • Person: means an individual, partnership, committee, association, corporation, hospital, or other organization or group. See South Carolina Code 44-77-20
  • Physician: means a person licensed to practice medicine. See South Carolina Code 44-77-20
  • Terminal condition: means an incurable or irreversible condition that, within reasonable medical judgment, could cause death within a reasonably short period of time if life-sustaining procedures are not used. See South Carolina Code 44-77-20
After certification of a terminal condition or a state of permanent unconsciousness, any person who relies on a declaration which on its face appears to have been executed in accordance with the provisions of this chapter, of which he has no actual notice of revocation, and who withholds or withdraws or participates in the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures from the terminally ill or permanently unconscious patient who executed the declaration, is presumed to be acting in good faith. A physician who in good faith certifies that a patient’s condition is terminal or that the patient is permanently unconscious is not subject to liability merely on account of certification. Any person who in good faith and in accordance with the provisions of this chapter participates in the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures from the patient is not subject to criminal or civil liability on account of the withholding or withdrawal. The immunity from civil liability does not extend to cases in which a physician deviates from standards of reasonable medical care in connection with the decision to withhold or withdraw.