2005 North Carolina Code - General Statutes § 90-320. General purpose of Article.

Article 23.

Right to Natural Death; Brain Death.

§ 90‑320.  General purpose of Article.

(a)       The General Assembly recognizes as a matter of public policy that an individual's rights include the right to a peaceful and natural death and that a patient or his representative has the fundamental right to control the decisions relating to the rendering of his own medical care, including the decision to have extraordinary means withheld or withdrawn in instances of a terminal condition. This Article is to establish an optional and nonexclusive procedure by which a patient or his representative may exercise these rights.

(b)       Nothing in this Article shall be construed to authorize any affirmative or deliberate act or omission to end life other than to permit the natural process of dying. Nothing in this Article shall impair or supersede any legal right or legal responsibility which any  person may have to effect the withholding or withdrawal of life‑sustaining procedures in any lawful manner. In such respect the provisions of this Article are cumulative. (1977, c. 815; 1979, c. 715, s. 1; 1983, c. 313, s. 1.)