Quote from: Bonaventure on Today at 01:03:54 PMQuote from: awkward customer on Today at 12:23:44 PMQuote from: Bonaventure on Today at 09:47:11 AMI like to remind myself that, the same clergy that are the biggest asserters that the 1968 NREC is "invalid" and the 1968 NRPO is "doubtful" also promulgated the idea that Michael Schiavo had a "God given right" to murder Terri Schiavo (Cekada) ....
What?
Forcing a feeding tube into the stomach of someone with lifelong Bulimia whose body has been destroyed by the ravages of that condition, who is effectively brain dead and who is being forced to breathe by a machine, could easily count as cruel and unusual punishment in some quarters.
At any rate, such treatment, given involuntarily, goes way beyond what the Church has traditionally described as 'Extaordinary' treatment, which we are entitled to refuse.
Fr Cekada was one of the few, sane commentators who pointed this out, thank goodness.
Michael Schiavo did not simply decide to remove the feeding tube, but all food and water, even from the mouth.
The SSPV thoroughly refuted Cekada's argument.
https://www.wcbohio.com/articles/the-execution-of-terri-schiavo-1
As Dr. James Gebel said:Quote9) Oral or stomach tube feeding via an "NG" (nasogastric tube) (a tube put down one's throat to the stomach) or (more commonly) via a "G-tube" are routinely used to feed stroke victims, both temporarily and indefinitely in patients with stroke or other brain injuries who cannot feed themselves, whether due to swallowing problems (which occur at least temporarily in most stroke victims). Such feeding and hydration are by modern medical standards considered as ordinary and unburdensome as eating and drinking on one's own. Such feedings are, in fact, less expensive than what an average American spends on food and water, and are easily administered a few times a day by a family member, requiring much less effort than cooking three meals a day. Terri Schiavo's husband, parents, or siblings could easily administer such feedings. They are by no logical measure extraordinary or unduly burdensome by any reasonable standard (moral, medical, or economic).
QuoteDear Dr. Gebel,
Someone forwarded to me your comments about my articles on the Schiavo case..
A number of other people involved in health care have written to me about the medical aspects of the case.
I not qualified to decide whether your medical opinion or other conflicting medical opinions about PVS, therapy, etc. are more in accord with the principles of medical science.
But common sense tells me that the method you used to arrive at your opinion -- reviewing CT images, watching a video and reviewing summary/excerpts regarding testimony given in deposition transcripts -- is no substitute for examining a live patient.
Unlike other doctors directly involved in the case, moreover, you have not been cross-examined on either your methods or your conclusions. Be that as it may, I am qualified to speak about the moral issues in the case, and indeed, I am also obliged to do so.
If what you seem to be claiming is true and Terri Schiavo was somehow able to eat and drink by natural means, there is no dispute that those who cared for her would have been obliged to provide her with food and drink. To have withheld these would have been a mortal sin (unjust direct homicide) against the Fifth Commandment.
However, my writings on the Schiavo case centered on something else: the principles that Catholic moral theology would apply to removing a feeding tube.
I do not want my parishioners to be left with the impression -- due to the high emotions and bitter controversy fanned by the morally bankrupt media and by various lay and clerical grandstanders -- that something is a mortal sin when it is not.
Who knows when any one of my flock may be called upon to deal with the issue of a feeding tube for himself or a family member?
Here, put very bluntly, are the two essential questions in moral theology that I have sought to resolve:
(1) Does the Fifth Commandment under pain of mortal sin always require a sick person who is unable to eat or drink by natural means to have a doctor shove a tube into his nose or poke a hole into his stomach in order to provide food and water?
(2) Does the Fifth Commandment under pain of mortal sin then always forbid such a person to have these tubes removed, no matter what grave burdens -- pain, revulsion, depression, expense, etc. -- their continued use may impose on him or another?
The answer to both questions is no.
Having a hole poked in you, a tube shoved in and then having to eat and drink that way would be burdensome for any normal man.
Like the IV drip mentioned by the moral theologian McFadden (whom I quoted elsewhere), one could maintain this procedure would be morally compulsory "as a temporary means of carrying a person through a critical period."
"Surely," however, "any effort to sustain life permanently in this fashion would constitute a grave hardship." (Medical Ethics, 1958, p.269.)
(Perhaps some priest, layman or doctor who rejects this conclusion could get his own feeding tube inserted, live that way for fifteen years, and let us all know in 2020 whether the experience was a grave hardship or not. Any takers?)
Insisting (as some have done in the Schiavo case) that one is bound to this under pain of mortal sin (otherwise, euthanasia! murder!) contradicts Pius XII's teaching that one is bound only to use "ordinary means," which he defined as those "that do not involve any grave burdens for oneself or another."
Imposing "a more strict obligation," the pontiff warned, "would be too burdensome for most people and would render the attainment of a higher, more important good too difficult."
So, even though as a doctor you may well consider poking holes into people and inserting permanent feeding tubes "by no logical measure extraordinary or unduly burdensome by any reasonable standard, moral, medical or economic," Catholics must nevertheless draw their understanding of extraordinary means from the Church's moral teachings -- rather than from the practices and pronouncements of the medical-industrial complex.
In sum, by the standards of Catholic moral theology, the permanent use of a feeding tube constitutes extraordinary means and is therefore not obligatory. Like all such means, one is free to use it, "as long as one does not fail in some more serious duty." (Pius XII)
But one cannot maintain that a Catholic is always bound to use a feeding tube under pain of mortal sin – still less, that the refusal to do so constitutes "murder."
Don't try to invent a mortal sin where there is none.
Quote from: awkward customer on Today at 12:29:11 PMDo people really base their rejection of the Sede position on the personality traits and foibles of Sede clergy?
Quote from: Bonaventure on Today at 01:03:54 PMQuote from: awkward customer on Today at 12:23:44 PMQuote from: Bonaventure on Today at 09:47:11 AMI like to remind myself that, the same clergy that are the biggest asserters that the 1968 NREC is "invalid" and the 1968 NRPO is "doubtful" also promulgated the idea that Michael Schiavo had a "God given right" to murder Terri Schiavo (Cekada) ....
What?
Forcing a feeding tube into the stomach of someone with lifelong Bulimia whose body has been destroyed by the ravages of that condition, who is effectively brain dead and who is being forced to breathe by a machine, could easily count as cruel and unusual punishment in some quarters.
At any rate, such treatment, given involuntarily, goes way beyond what the Church has traditionally described as 'Extaordinary' treatment, which we are entitled to refuse.
Fr Cekada was one of the few, sane commentators who pointed this out, thank goodness.
Michael Schiavo did not simply decide to remove the feeding tube, but all food and water, even from the mouth.
The SSPV thoroughly refuted Cekada's argument.
https://www.wcbohio.com/articles/the-execution-of-terri-schiavo-1
As Dr. James Gebel said:Quote9) Oral or stomach tube feeding via an "NG" (nasogastric tube) (a tube put down one's throat to the stomach) or (more commonly) via a "G-tube" are routinely used to feed stroke victims, both temporarily and indefinitely in patients with stroke or other brain injuries who cannot feed themselves, whether due to swallowing problems (which occur at least temporarily in most stroke victims). Such feeding and hydration are by modern medical standards considered as ordinary and unburdensome as eating and drinking on one's own. Such feedings are, in fact, less expensive than what an average American spends on food and water, and are easily administered a few times a day by a family member, requiring much less effort than cooking three meals a day. Terri Schiavo's husband, parents, or siblings could easily administer such feedings. They are by no logical measure extraordinary or unduly burdensome by any reasonable standard (moral, medical, or economic).