The law must presume that human persons want to live

Dr Wesley J. Smith quite accurately notes that in the United Kingdom, a presumption at law to the effect that in certain circumstances people will want to die, to choose death, seems to be settling in:

Moreover, the sacrosanct nature of advance directives isn't a two way street. In the UK, if a patient wants to continue to receive life support, has stated so in an advance directive, and is either unconscious or unable to communicate further, no jail threats against doctors for "pulling the plug."  Indeed, the Leslie Burke case gave doctors that very power. (We see the same paradigm at work here in the USA with the encroachment of Futile Care Theory on patient autonomy.)

 
So, in the UK, violate an advance directive causing a patient to live, and face jail. Violate an advance directive leading to a patient's death, and it is merely medical ethics.

I haven't signed an advance directive myself because I don't really think that the doctors will keep the hydration/feeding tube in place, if I should find myself in such a position; silly, I suppose, because, after all, they might, if I am in the right place and the right hospital.