Failure to feed ‘vegetative’ patients immoral, says Pope

[IndianaGreen]

Here is a 2004 article from the British Catholic publication The Tablet on the Schiavo case:

World Church News - 27 March 2004

Failure to feed ‘vegetative’ patients immoral, says Pope

Pope John Paul II has sought to end a longstanding debate among theologians over the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration from patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Such a withdrawal, the Pope said last Saturday, amounts to “euthanasia by omission” and was gravely immoral. Pope John Paul stressed that any “patient in a vegetative state had the right to basic sanitary assistance – food, water and hygiene – and to efforts to prevent health complications caused by immobility”.

The comments were made on 20 March to an international group of doctors and ethicists at a four-day conference entitled “Life Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State: Scientific Advances and Ethical Dilemmas”, which was organised by the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations and the Pontifical Academy for Life. The conference website is www.vegetativestate.org.

In PVS, patients are awake but not aware of themselves or their environment. The condition is different from a coma, in which the patient is neither awake nor aware. Both, however, are states in which the patient is devoid of consciousness. In PVS the brain is badly damaged but the brainstem is alive, maintaining functions such as breathing. Patients in PVS are normally fed by tube into the stomach or through the nose.

Many scientists have cast doubt on the ability of doctors to diagnose PVS with confidence. A number of patients formerly thought to be “vegetative” have been enabled to communicate by computer.

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/citw.cgi/past-00172

[BrklynLiberal]

1. What will happen in the Vatican if the Pope is in that situation? He is

not dead, but cannot fulfil his functions? Do they elect a new Pope?

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[IndianaGreen]

7. For those that knee-jerk on certain issues without reading...

Here is the website for that conference:

http://www.vegetativestate.org/pagina_iniziale.htm

and their final conference report:

FIAMC

Fédération Internationale des Associations Médicales Catholiques

World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations

PONTIFICAL ACADEMY FOR LIFE JOINT STATEMENT

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SCIENTIFIC AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS RELATED TO VEGETATIVE STATE

9) We acknowledge that every human being has the dignity of a human person, without any discrimination based on race, culture, religion, health conditions, or socio-economic conditions. Such a dignity, based on human nature itself, is a permanent and intangible value, that cannot depend on specific circumstances of life and cannot be subordinated to anybody's judgement. We recognize the search for the best possible quality of life for every human being as an intrinsic duty of medicine and society, but we believe that it cannot and must not be the ultimate criterion used to judge the value of a human being's life.

We acknowledge that the dignity of every person can also be expressed in the practice of autonomous choices; however, personal autonomy can never justify decisions or actions against one's own life or that of others: in fact, the exercise of freedom is impossible outside of life.

10) Based on these premises, we feel the duty to state that VS patients are human persons, and, as such, they need to be fully respected in their fundamental rights. The first of these rights is the right to live and to the safeguard of health. In particular, VS patients have the right to:

-correct and thorough diagnostic evaluation, in order to avoid possible mistakes and to orient rehabilitation in the best way;
-basic care, including hydration, nutrition, warming and personal hygiene;
-prevention of possible complications and monitoring for any possible signs of recovery;
-adequate rehabilitative processes, prolonged in time, favouring the recovery and maintenance of all progress achieved;
-be treated as any other patients with reference to general assistance and affective relationships.

This requires that any decision of abandonment based on a probability judgement be discouraged, considering the insufficiency and unreliability of prognostic criteria available to date. The possible decision of withdrawing nutrition and hydration, necessarily administered to VS patients in an assisted way, is followed inevitably by the patients' death as a direct consequence. Therefore, it has to be considered a genuine act of euthanasia by omission, which is morally unacceptable.

http://www.vegetativestate.org/documento_FIAMC.htm

[ixion]

2. oh yeah? well so is killing innocents in the name of god

but I don't seem him labeling state/church sanctioned murder 'immoral'. :grr:


More people have died in the name of god, than for any other reason, historically speaking.

[DemBones DemBones]

12. Haven't paid much attention, have you? He spoke out against the

war in Iraq, against harm to noncombatants anywhere, and against the death penalty (as well as against euthnasia and abortion.) He frequently pleaded with American governors and presidents to spare the lives of particular prisoners about to be executed.

Additionally, he issued formal statements apologizing for any wrong by the Church or by individual Catholics related to the Holocaust, the Inqusition, the treatment of Native Americans and other native people, the enslavement of blacks from Africa, and probably several more events. In the bios being shown this week, I saw him apologizing to the Chinese people but I'm not sure there was any particular event mentioned.

He also spoke out against the ills of capitalism and globalism, as well as against communism, fascism, the Nazis.

[glitch]

3. That does it - feeding tube for eternity Pope. No meeting God for you.

No eternal rest in the loving arms of Jesus. Too bad, so sad for you.

The state decides who lives and dies. Happy Easter.

[aquart]

5. Where does the soul reside, is the question.

If the soul resides solely with the body..........

[jfalchion]

6. The Pope is the state

"The state decides who lives and dies."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vatican City is an independent nation. The Pope is the state.

[Tinoire]

8. LMAO

What did you guys do? Did you "magically" stumble on this post buried in this forum or did you do a search word on one of your favorite words "Pope" before descending?

What a strange coincidence to suddenly see all these happy faces and in the same thread!

I'm going to request that the moderators move this post out of this forum because the crap responses the word "Pope" elicits at DU is not what the disabilities forum was set up for.

[Sugarbleus]

10. Wow, Tinoire...you pegged it pretty good...

LOL, I saw your suggestion in another thread..Voile' here they come.

[happyslug]

11. Notice VS is distinguished from what is called PVS

2) VS must be clearly distinguished from: encephalic death, coma, "locked-in" syndrome, minimally conscious state. VS cannot be simply equalled to cortical death either, considering that in VS patients islands of cortical tissue which may even be quite large can keep functioning.


Schiavo is suffering from PVS i.e her cortical has atrophy. Thus this document does NOT apply to Schiavo.

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/12720.html

"The diagnosis of the permanent vegetative state is primarily clinical, with repeated neurological examination necessary over a period of time to establish absence of cognitive functions and irreversibility. Laboratory studies may be useful and confirmatory in some cases. For example, EEGs will show severe background slowing. When monitored over a few years, CT scans and MRIs will show progressive cerebral cortical atrophy. While the degree of cerebral cortical atrophy does not necessarily correlate with the complete loss of cerebral cortical functions, it does, however, help to confirm that the underlying process, given the severity of destruction seen on these neuroimaging studies, is irreversible, thus establishing to a high degree of certainty that the condition is permanent. Clinical studies evaluating the usefulness of PET (positron emission tomography) have confirmed the absence of consciousness in these patients by conclusively demonstrating levels of oxygen and glucose metabolism in the cerebral cortex consistent with deep levels of coma, and other forms of deep unconsciousness."