I think you are wrong on the actual feelings of people who face this decision every day. There is an important distinction to be made between brain injury patients who are otherwise healthy in body, and those suffering from terminal disease. Many many people have had terminal parents and other relatives who, wasting from disease, are medicated for pain but never hooked to IV or tube feeding systems. My grandfather died of ALS, cared for by us in our home, with the assistance of hospice nurses. In his final days he was in and out of consciousness, and never had any kind of IV inserted.
My mother, on the other hand, died in hospital of stomach and liver cancer. She had IV hydration, and also received Morphine through that IV, but she had no nutrition other than liquids in her final days, her digestive systems were shutting down and it was not even discussed as an option to insert a feeding tube. Due to her level of Morphine given for pain, she was never conscious.
So in the simple answer, I'd say no, that is not the place to start. These treatment and care decisions are much more complicated than that. Removal of a tube in a person who is lingering because of it is an entirely different situation than the situation many face, where there is no tube inserted in the first place. Did they die sooner than they would have with a feeding tube? And would the extension of time in those circumstances have been a mercy or a cruelty? Is the length of survival the best measure of life?
The 'quality of life' issue would not even have sunken into this level of conversation if we all could take a step back to what brought it to this level.
Go back to my looooong post about viaticals.
If there was no money to be made from transferring a life insurance policy...there would be no grey area to discuss on who should decide when someone should stop receiving treatment.
This discussion gets hot because everyone has had a level of experience with it. No one is comfortable with making these decisions for someone else. No one wants to entertain the thought as to whether they did the right thing.
We all can stay focused on where this whole system went wrong.
That is the viaticals. The transference of the life insurance policies.
If that is stopped. There would be no patient brokering.
:)
Before sterilization, antibiotics and development of modern inert materials feeding tubes would usually do more damage than good -as such feeding tubes are a recent advanced alternate method of feeding one that would otherwise starve. FYI -my belief as a Catholic is that food is not an extraordinary measure and that permitting death is far different from procuring death. As such the decision to allow one to die is far different than causing one to die. No need to respond -just presenting information.
What the Catholic Church teaches -here are some linked documents and excerpts that may answer questions:
Euthanasia's terms of reference, therefore, are to be found in the intention of the will and in the methods used. It is necessary to state firmly once more that nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action. For it is a question of the violation of the divine law, an offense against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity. It may happen that, by reason of prolonged and barely tolerable pain, for deeply personal or other reasons, people may be led to believe that they can legitimately ask for death or obtain it for others. Although in these cases the guilt of the individual may be reduced or completely absent, nevertheless the error of judgment into which the conscience falls, perhaps in good faith, does not change the nature of this act of killing, which will always be in itself something to be rejected.
To concur with the intention of another person to commit suicide and to help in carrying it out through so-called "assisted suicide" means to cooperate in, and at times to be the actual perpetrator of, an injustice which can never be excused, even if it is requested. In a remarkably relevant passage Saint Augustine writes that "it is never licit to kill another: even if he should wish it, indeed if he request it because, hanging between life and death, he begs for help in freeing the soul struggling against the bonds of the body and longing to be released; nor is it licit even when a sick person is no longer able to live".Even when not motivated by a selfish refusal to be burdened with the life of someone who is suffering, euthanasia must be called a false mercy, and indeed a disturbing "perversion" of mercy. True "compassion" leads to sharing another's pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear. Moreover, the act of euthanasia appears all the more perverse if it is carried out by those, like relatives, who are supposed to treat a family member with patience and love, or by those, such as doctors, who by virtue of their specific profession are supposed to care for the sick person even in the most painful terminal stages.
The choice of euthanasia becomes more serious when it takes the form of a murder committed by others on a person who has in no way requested it and who has never consented to it. The height of arbitrariness and injustice is reached when certain people, such as physicians or legislators, arrogate to themselves the power to decide who ought to live and who ought to die. Once again we find ourselves before the temptation of Eden: to become like God who "knows good and evil" (cf. Gen 3:5). God alone has the power over life and death: "It is I who bring both death and life" (Dt 32:39; cf. 2 Kg 5:7; 1 Sam 2:6). But he only exercises this power in accordance with a plan of wisdom and love. When man usurps this power, being enslaved by a foolish and selfish way of thinking, he inevitably uses it for injustice and death. Thus the life of the person who is weak is put into the hands of the one who is strong; in society the sense of justice is lost, and mutual trust, the basis of every authentic interpersonal relationship, is undermined at its root.
The condemnation of euthanasia expressed by the Encyclical Evangelium vitae since it is a "grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person" (n. 65), reflects the impact of universal ethical reasoning (it is founded on natural law) and the elementary premise of faith in God the Creator and protector of every human person.6. The approach to the gravely ill and the dying must therefore be inspired by the respect for the life and the dignity of the person. It should pursue the aim of making proportionate treatment available but without engaging in any form of "overzealous treatment" (cf. CCC, n. 2278). One should accept the patient's wishes when it is a matter of extraordinary or risky therapy which he is not morally obliged to accept. One must always provide ordinary care (including artificial nutrition and hydration), palliative treatment, especially the proper therapy for pain, in a dialogue with the patient which keeps him informed.
At the approach of death, which appears inevitable, "it is permitted in conscience to take the decision to refuse forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life" (cf. Declaration on Euthanasia, part IV) because there is a major ethical difference between "procuring death" and "permitting death": the former attitude rejects and denies life, while the latter accepts its natural conclusion.
4. Medical doctors and health-care personnel, society and the Church have moral duties toward these persons from which they cannot exempt themselves without lessening the demands both of professional ethics and human and Christian solidarity.The sick person in a vegetative state, awaiting recovery or a natural end, still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc.), and to the prevention of complications related to his confinement to bed. He also has the right to appropriate rehabilitative care and to be monitored for clinical signs of eventual recovery.
I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality, which in the present case consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering.
Very true. Since Terri Schiavo was NOT terminal, and did NOT leave anything in writing stating that she wanted to die a cruel death by dehydration, I take it that you were on the side of life for Terri. Is that correct?