Here is the BBC version: Vegetative State Drug Review Call
And here is an example from the print media (Daily Telegraph) 'Lazarus' husband demands drug inquiry
The basic story: "Jessica" (not her real name) was a PVS patient. Her family, in the words of the Telegraph, "asked for her feeding to be withdrawn so that she could be allowed to die." The Official Solicitor obtained a High Court order that she should be treated with the anti-insomnia drug Zolpiden which has, in some cases, led to PVS patients recoving some consciousness. It didn't work. The family are angry and demanding an enquiry.
It would be morally acceptable for the family to refuse the drug on behalf of an incapacitated relative if it was agreed that the drug was an "extraordinary means" - as it may well be if the drug is still unproven. (Medics feel free to chip in on this question.)
But notice how the withdrawal of food has been slipped in quietly. The reporting of the case seems to be taking this practice as normal nowadays. Feeding is not an extraordinary means of keeping someone alive. To withdraw food is to withdraw basic care - and the intent of hastening death is clear enough in this case. The obvious inhumanity of this process of starving someone to death is not lost on "Jessica"'s husband. The BBC reports:
After his wife's nutritional support was withdrawn, it took 14 days for her to die, which he said was not a dignified death.As we said in the first newsletter of the Association of Priests for the Gospel of Life when the debate was raging over the Mental Capacity Bill (passed into law in April 2005 and coming into effect this year.)
"If she was a dog and we said it was incurable and we said I'm going to lock it in its kennel and not feed it, I think the RSPCA would be knocking at your door."
It must be remembered that the euthanasia movement regards the legalisation of euthanasia by neglect as a crucial step in the campaign to legalise active euthanasia. In 1984, Dr Helgha Kuhse, president of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies, said: “If we can get people to accept the removal of all treatment and care – especially the removal of food and fluids – they will see what a painful way this is to die and then, in the patient’s best interests, they will accept the lethal injection.”After this widely publicised case, expect more calls for lethal injections, and much justifying of the Mental Capacity Act.
And very importantly: say a prayer for the happy repose of the soul of "Jessica."
6 comments:
I heard the interview on Today this morning. I have to say that it was one of the most naked pieces of propaganda I have heard in many a year. The interviewer (Carolyn Quinn) naturally wanted to give the husband a sympathetic hearing but at no point in the entire interview were the assumptions he made challenged. It is precisely this kind of soft-issues approach that characterises the culture war in this country (and it is as much a culture war as that our American brethren are engaged in - allbeit more dangerous because of the insidious way in which it is carried on).
I have given up writing letters of complaint because I am fed up with the standard "anger management" type replies. I really do think that prayer and fasting are the only (why do I say "only"?) tools at our disposal.
Zolpidem is most certainly unproven - it ranks just above "expert opinion" at the bottom of the evidence pile.
It is hardly extraordinary means, however. It is not a burdensome drug to give - it is dished out by the bucket load in general practice to insomniacs. It's adverse effects are few - the chance of benefit great if the poor woman were to wake.
But the world of medical ethics is truly upside down when the BMA and the family can become aerated about a perceived problem of consent, yet as you say , father, can blithely slip into the piece the fact that this poor woman was starved to death.
As I've said elsewhere - people stop eating and drinking when they begin to die and this is usually pretty easily identifiable. Patients who are not dying most surely begin to die when you stop feeding them. The RSPCA would most certainly be onto you if you treated a dog like this: it is against the law to starve dogs to death.
I don't remember being asked if it was OK to starve people to death. As Stephen says we need to pray and fast and refuse to be silent and complicit.
Related - I've just had this through from Dr Helen Watt at the Linacre Centre:
http://www.linacre.org/Incapacity&Care.pdf
The Linacre Centre's 30th Anniversary Conference on Incapacity and Care: Moral Problems in Healthcare and Research.
http://www.linacre.org/
Could you give it a plug, father?
I was called into a parishioner of mine who is in hospital and took a turn for the worse today, he has not been able to eat for the last nine weeks, but has been on drips etc. Today he is off his drip and the hospital are not giving him anything other than morphine injections. When I raised the moral problem of this with the family, they were not conserned. What do you suggest I do Fr Tim? Please all keep Larry in your prayers at this difficult time.
As I understand it, there can be circumstances when a patient cannot assimilate food or fluids. However, a decision to withdraw food & fluids from someone who can assimilate them is, of course wrong.
The Patients First Network telephone support service (0800 169 1719) run by SPUC will be able to get an expert medical opinion on a particular case - but it might be difficult for you to get enough information if the relatives are not interested.
To die from dehydration or starvation is extremely unpleasant and the family might be concerned about this. But, of course, the morphine could simply disguise the discomfort.
I will remember Larry in my prayers at Mass tonight and you, Father in your hospital ministry.
PP up North,
or, you could get LifeSite involved. We have sometimes been able to do something in situations like this.
Please contact me as soon as you can,
Hilary White
quicustodiet66atyahoodotca
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