Anything in the medical community can be abusive and abused wrongfully...... I don’t believe in extreme measures when someone is in the ‘stage of dying’, nor withholding food or water. Both are cruel IMO.
But when it comes to the lengths that the medical field can go to sustain ‘a body’ then you’ve gone too far. Unfortunately this often only happens when family members cannot accept the lose they know they are facing.
Just as an FYI, withholding food and water is usually only an option where the person is incapable of doing it themselves. And in the cases I am personally aware of, you could have brought in a steak dinner and cut it up and served it to them...and they would still not have been able to eat or drink.
They don’t walk into the room and look at a conscious person and say, “No food for you.”
The whole process gets twisted every time it comes up around these parts.
Your comments on this thread are excellent. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go. I was with a few people when they left the world. It’s not a tragedy, we all have to go through that door. But the time of exit is up to God, and should be left in His hands. When my mother was a few days from death, or a week, she didn’t want to eat any more. I tried to tempt her with some easy to eat favorites, but she didn’t want any food. So we respected that, and gave her liquids as long as she wanted them. That is natural. No one should ever be deprived of nutrition unless they refuse (and are near death, not mentally ill).