Those of you who followed the passage of HB 634 (now
S.L. 2007-502) might be interested in recent guidance from the Catholic
Church clarifying that the provision
of food and water (by natural or artificial means) to a patient in a vegetative
state is morally obligatory. Dr. Elizabeth Wickham, head of LifeTree, notes that the Church’s teaching on this point raises troubling questions regarding North Carolina’s new law:
The Church teaches that
we cannot authorize through living wills, health care power of attorneys,
POLST/MOST forms, etc. the withholding or withdrawing of artificial nutrition
and hydration under the vague conditions permitted by
the legislation. Take for example the conditions in the new NC standard
Living Will form. Called an "Advance Directive for Natural
Death" the standard LW form in H634 invites the declarant to
authorize the withholding or withdrawing of life-prolonging measures, which
include artificial nutrition and hydration, if the declarant:
a) Has an incurable or irreversible
condition that will result in the declarant’s death within a relatively short
period of time, or;
b) Becomes unconscious and, to a high
degree of medical certainity, will never regain consciousness, or;
c) Suffers from advanced dementia
or any other condition resulting from the substantial loss of cognitive ability
and that loss, to a high degree of medical certainity, is not reversible.
For the record, nowhere in the
bill are terms such as "relatively short period of time," "to a high
degree of medical certainity," or "advanced dementia" ever
defined.
These three conditions stand in stark
contrast to the conditions listed in the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith document explaining the very limited circumstances under
which artificial nutrition and hydration can be withheld or withdrawn.
To learn more, see Civitas’ Life/Family
Issues Recap.
Jameson Taylor
Lucky we have a separation of church and state.