CDF statement on ANH

Good to have a fellow blogger at home. Fr Z yesterday handed me a print off of the statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "Responses to certain questions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops concerning artificial nutrition and hydration."

Fr Z has the text in Latin and English in parallel columns. The key texts:
The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life. It is therefore obligatory to the extent to which, and for as long as, it is shown to accomplish its proper finality, which is the hydration and nourishment of the patient. In this way suffering and death by starvation and dehydration are prevented.
and
A patient in a "permanent vegetative state" is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means.

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