
02.08.2020
extraordinary means catholic
However, at base the question was a moral, not a legal, one: under what conditions, if any, may a patient, a guardian, medical personnel or civil authorities, withhold or withdraw nutrition and hydration?Catholic Teaching on Ordinary & Extraordinary MeansThe natural law and the Fifth Commandment* requires that all ordinary means be used to preserve life, such as food, water, exercise, and medical care. We must, therefore, ask the question "will the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration allow the person to die, or kill the person?" Catechism of the Catholic Church 2268-2269).Q. Food and water are natural means of sustaining life, not medical acts, even if delivered artificially. Almost all human societies throughout history, both religious and non-religious, have recognized that it is wrong to kill an innocent person. The court-ordered starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo in 2005 raised a number of issues—moral, legal and constitutional, about the right to life and the so-called right to die.
•Strong, Carson (1981) Can Fluids and Electrolytes be ‘Extraordinary’ Treatment?Journal of Medical Ethics, 7.2, 83-85. This means that great care is required in applying the moral law to particular cases, and each person should consider how they will do so, and how they will ensure that they receive morally appropriate care when they are not able to decide for themselves. At a recent speaking event I was asked whether it is acceptable to remove life support or if we have “to do everything we can” to keep a person alive. [To the Congress on Life-Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State, 20 March 2004)1 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Iura et Bona, p. IV2 cf.
When a person has an underlying terminal disease, or their heart, or some other organ, cannot work without mechanical assistance, or a therapy being proposed is dangerous, or has little chance of success, then not using that machine or that therapy results in the person dying from the disease or organ failure they already have. The natural law and the Fifth Commandment* requires that all ordinary means be used to preserve life, such as food, water, exercise, and medical care. While state laws on the format, obligatory content and witnessing required, varies, the Center also has an information package that includes examples of an EWTN © 2019 (Permission to print for personal non-commercial use is hereby granted. 2. Does this also apply to artificially provided nutrition and hydration?A. Indeed, when the other artificial means were withdrawn she continued to live, so that the withdrawal of her food and water directly caused her death. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted. A man in the audience then asked me, “But specifically what is extraordinary care?”He had been following the debate over California’s Apart from costs, dialysis can also impose a significant physical burden on the patient, so I understand the dilemma people face when trying to decide if it should be removed. Catholic Teaching on Ordinary & Extraordinary Means. Instead it must be based on whether the treatment provides benefit to the patient and if that benefit is proportional to the treatment’s financial, physical, and emotional burdens.
Dialysis can also lead to frailty, cognitive impairment, and lack of motor functioning, and so contribute to falls.
Depending on the various side effects and problems associated with the procedure, and depending on how minimal the benefits may be in light of other medical conditions the patient may be struggling with, it can become reasonable, in some cases, to discontinue dialysis.But in cases of otherwise healthy individuals, the removal of dialysis may be unethical. The best way is by means of an Advance Directive which states the patients wishes with respect to aggressive medical treatment. The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides some general teaching in this area: ... Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. Long-term dialysis use has also been connected to internal bleeding and serious bacterial infections. The natural law is morality which reason can determine from the nature of man, without the assistance of God's revelation. What can a person do to ensure that their wishes and their beliefs are respected by their family, medical personnel and the courts, when they are unable to take part in decisions about their own care?A. If the result of withholding or withdrawing nutrition and hydration is death by starvation and dehydration, as opposed to an undying disease or dysfunction, it is gravely immorally.In summary, nutrition and hydration, like bathing and changing the patient's position to avoid bedsores, is ordinary care that is owed to the patient. It should address matters of spiritual care, including to be visited by a priest, to receive the sacraments of the Church, and, should it become necessary, to receive a funeral and burial in keeping with Catholic teaching and discipline. This is true even if it is delivered artificially, as when a baby is bottle-fed or a sick person is tube-fed.Nutrition and hydration may only be discontinued when they cannot achieve their natural purposes, such as when the body can no longer process them, or, when during the death process they would only prolong the person's suffering.
In this case, the child was deprived a procedure that would have provided proportional care, but its life was considered “not worth living” because of a Down syndrome diagnosis.Conversely, some seemingly “ordinary” interventions actually involve disproportionate care. So, for example, in the last hours, even days, of a cancer patient's life, or if a sick person's body is no longer able to process food and water, there is no moral obligation to provide nutrition and hydration. Death by starvation or dehydration is, in fact, the only possible outcome as a result of their withdrawal.
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