I disagree
What's next on the list for reasons not to treat? Alcohol consumption? Driving too fast?
Don't forget, this person is being treated under a public health system, a sort of system which most people on this board have little to no experience in. While private systems control costs by raising prices so as to drive part of the market out, public systems do it by rationing. It's ok to ration; that's not the point. The point is the rationale under which rationing occurs; in Canada, it's done with lists on a first-come first-served basis. However, past behaviour is not used to change places on the list. It's a bad idea (esp. under sole-payer and/or public health systems) to do it based on other criteria, as it creates very real potential for abuse based on value judgements by people working within the system: Your parents are born-again nutjobs? No abortion for you! Under a public system, this is an extremely undesirable outcome.
This is not the same in a many-payer private system; either the guy can afford a doctor who will do it anyway, or he's screwed anyway so it doesn't matter.
Instead, they should add a clause to his permission to treatment form absolving the doctors and institutions involved of any liability should his treatment end in the outcome feared by his doctors, and then do it anyway.
