[NYer]

Tim Drake is a staff writer with the National Catholic Register, and author of the book "Young and Catholic: The Face of Tomorrow's Church " (Sophia Institute Press, 2004). He writes from Saint Joseph, Minnesota.

[NYer]

Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

[MarMema]

The way I see it, there should always be some form of hydration.

Finally, someone who knows.

Thanks for this post.

[muawiyah]

We should revise our laws to require capital punishment for the offense of starving a human being.

[frogjerk]

Michael Schiavo: "I forgot to tell everyone, Terri didn't want to be a Catholic anymore so she doesn't believe that starving herself to death is so bad"

[PeterFinn]

The Schiavo case is not about the Right to Die, it is about the Right to Kill.

[Tench_Coxe]

I fear a day of reckoning is coming. Not for myself, but for Schiavo and his fellow travellers and abettors.

[Salvation]

**The way I see it, there should always be some form of hydration.**

Says it all right there.

[RichInOC]

No offense intended to present company, but what do they mean, "we"?

[FreeAtlanta]

If they wouldn't take it seriously, someone ought to ask the Democrats if they could save Social Security by killing the elderly?

http://www.robokopp.de/images/soylent_green/soylent_green07.jpg

[MadIvan]

The first thing is that after 2-3 days you get extremely dehydrated. That results in a lot of changes in the body. Your mucous membranes and your skin get very dry. Your mouth cracks. It's very uncomfortable. Your urine becomes very concentrated and acidic, making it uncomfortable to urinate. Then your heart rate increases, your blood pressure decreases, and after about the third day, your kidneys start to develop problems. When the kidneys are damaged enough, they cannot get rid of the poison in the body. Blood urea nitrogen (BUN) builds up. The effect that this has on the body is to give you a type of lethargy, and has an almost anesthetic effect. It can also result in seizures. The poison builds up and drives the person towards unconsciousness after a period of days. The cause of death is usually seizures or cardiac arrhythmia because of an electrolyte imbalance.

I'm not given to crying, but I'm choking back tears and rage reading this. Sheer utter rage.

Regards, Ivan

[SuziQ]

This is a very good article. I'm glad it mentioned the 'living will' idea. It's good to know what Catholic teaching is on the matter.

[Frank_2001]

Excellent article!

[djreece]

marking

[agrace]

If a person has an injury, such as a chemical burn of the esophagus, and cannot eat any more, everyone would say that the person should be given a stomach tube. Yet, when you have a person with Alzheimer's, some people will say that they have lived their life and can slowly die of starvation by failing to place a stomach tube. When you do that, you're basing the entire decision upon intellectual ability and worth. If you take IQ out of it, you would treat the two people the same. If you argue that someone can't process the food otherwise, they should be given a stomach tube, then you need to give it to everyone. I've never seen anyone who could challenge that argument.

Amen to that.

It's wrong in any circumstance, regardless of whether she said she didn't want it or her husband says she didn't want it. It's inherently evil to deny food and water to anyone unless it's going to make the person worse or death is within a few hours. It's independent from what she or her husband has said.

That too.