A patient who is conscious and able to make informed decisions has the right to refuse medical treatment, including life-saving therapy, the National Bioethics Committee (CNB) said on Friday.
If a patient has been ''adequately informed about therapies'' his wishes must be ''respected'', even if this clashes with a doctor's ethics, the document said.
Doctors have the right to conscientious objection if they disagree, nevertheless a patient must have the freedom to find an ''alternative way of fulfilling his request,'' the Committee said.
It stressed that the decision was unconnected to cases of people in irreversible coma ''or patients unable to make an informed decision,'' including minors and the mentally deranged.
The document is unconnected to a long-running debate over the issue of living wills, which is currently being examined by parliament.
Earlier this month, the Senate Health Committee began examining various proposals for regulating living wills, which allow people to stipulate what medical treatment they want in case they later become unable to make a decision themselves.
The measures under consideration range from liberal proposals that would allow euthanasia through to draft laws that would limit a patient's wishes to one consideration among many when deciding a course of treatment.
However, most fall somewhere between the two extremes, and the fiercest battles will be fought over whether patients should have the right to request an end to the administration of food and water under certain circumstances.
Two high profile end-of-life cases - one of which dealing with a father's fight to switch off the machine that has kept his daughter alive but in an irreversible coma for the last 16 years - have generated considerable public sympathy for the idea of living wills.
