Some cognitive functioning

The controversy over end-of-life treatment thus continues, now focused
on the morality and legality of physician-assisted suicide and of
decision making for those who appear unable to decide for themselves.
In the former case, the salient issue is typically the right of competent
individuals to enlist physicians’ assistance in committing suicide; in the
latter, the difficulties of ascertaining the prior or hypothetical wishes of
the patient and their relevance to the present decision. In both areas, the
notion of quality of life is firmly entrenched as an important, if often
suspect, consideration. On the one hand, interventions that are technically
feasible, but produce no discernible improvement in quality of
life, are often opposed as pointless and undignified. On the other hand,
the opposition to withdrawing life support from individuals who retain
some cognitive functioning, or the possibility of recovering it, often
emphasizes the quality of life still possible for those individuals.
Patients are not the only group to have become more concerned about