WTF! U.S. Bishops To Vote On Mandatory Feeding Of Vegetative Patients In Catholic Hospitals

[Are_grits_groceries]

I got this via email yesterday, and gee, I hope the media covers this one (.pdf link to application for media credentials). Because there are all kinds of implications: Does the Catholic Church get to decide that, government health insurance will pay for the indefinite maintenance of someone in a persistent vegetative state because they've suddenly decided to up the ante?

And do Catholic hospital officials intend to override advance directives or medical powers of attorney? Remember, many people live in a community that has only a Catholic hospital. (While my father was dying from excruciatingly painful pancreatic cancer, he was denied a morphine drip by his Catholic pro-life doctor. The Saint said it might make dad might die a few hours sooner than he was "supposed" to, so this is more than a theoretical issue to me.)

I'd just like to remind everyone that the Catholic Church continues to make disapproving noises about unjust war and the death penalty, but I never see any public denouncements of the politicians who support them them. Instead, they throw their weight behind issues like this.

WASHINGTON-The full body of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will take into account the most recent Catholic teaching on care for the chronically ill and dying when they vote on a proposed revision of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services at their November 16-19 general assembly in Baltimore. The proposed revision states more definitively the moral obligation to provide medically assisted nutrition and hydration to patients in a "persistent vegetative state."

http://crooksandliars.com/

I am so effing tired of the Catholic Church being the moral arbiter of everything. If a patient has an advance directive or someone has medical power of attorney, are they going to override them in their hospitals?

Some people only have access to care at their facilities.

[vadawg]

1. theres the rub if its their facility they pretty much can set the rules

if your in the catholic hospital you pretty much know you are following thier rules..

[Cleobulus]

2. Uhm, I hope not, hospitals should be a hell of a lot more heavily regulated than that...

When the closest hospital is a Catholic one, or the majority of hospitals in an area are run by a Catholic organization, then in many cases you don't have a choice as to what hospital you end up staying in. This isn't the Holiday Inn we are talking about, and I hope public accommodation rules and then some are enforced vigorously against Catholic Hospitals that break the PUBLIC rules.

[SergeStorms]

3. Ahhhhhhhh.......the sanctity of life.

You see, god wants people to suffer unspeakable pain and misery for as long as possible. :sarcasm: Aren't THEY playing god by feeding people who normally couldn't feed themselves? Apparently god wants them to stop eating and die, so who are they to go against god's plan? I don't ever remember reading anything in the bible about Jesus or anyone else force-feeding vegetative people. :shrug: If god wanted people to be force fed against their will, wouldn't he/she/it have installed a convenient feeding tube while creating them? God is omniscient, correct? He/she/it surely would have foreseen this dilemma and corrected for it?

How they justify their edicts has always been a source of amazement to me. I guess minds that can accept supernatural myths can create and accept justifications for just about anything. If you can be force-fed and keep down the blatant contradictions of the bible, you can be force-fed and keep down anything, right?

I'll never understand why otherwise normal, rational people accept religious dogma without question.

[boppers]

4. Time to recognize that health care is a government issue, not a religious one.

"Catholic hospitals" doesn't even make sense.... medicine has nothing to do with faith.

[Enthusiast]

5. You gots it all wrong, boppers.

Health care is a profit issue!

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Best to avoid Catholic hospitals.