Opinion ID: 795353
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Impairment of the Right to Refuse Treatment

Text: 34 We emphasize that the right to medical information is not, in and of itself, an independent right. Rather, it is a derivative of the right to refuse treatment and extends only to those circumstances in which it will effectuate a patient's exercise of that underlying right. So as a threshold matter, a prisoner must show that, had he received information that was not given to him, he would have exercised his right to refuse the proposed treatment. Cf. Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 351, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996) (holding that, to state a claim for denial of the right to access the courts, a prisoner must demonstrate that the alleged shortcomings in the library or legal assistance program hindered his efforts to pursue a legal claim). That is to say, a prisoner must be able to establish that the underlying right at stake—the right to refuse treatment — actually was impaired by the state's failure to impart necessary information to the prisoner-patient. If a prisoner still would have accepted the proposed treatment, even if he had been given all of the necessary information regarding that treatment, then his right to refuse treatment has not been impaired, and the deprivation of medical information is of no consequence.