A discussion about the Terri Schiavo case has emerged in the 'Sedevacantism and Akita' thread in the Sede subforum. Since I have been a major participant in this discussion, I'm starting a new thread because the issue of the Ordinary/Extraordinary nature of feeding tubes is an important one and so as not to keep derailing the thread. I also feel obliged to defend the late Fr Anthony Cekada against accusations of promoting murder etc etc.
So here goes. I maintain that feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment and that Terri Shiavo was kept alive for 15 years in conditions that could easily be described as cruel and usual punishment.
But there are others who disagree.
So what does the Church say? Are feeding tubes Ordinary or Extraordinary treatment?
I know nothing about the Schiavo case nor the Church teaching on the matter, but since we're on a forum and my $0.02 is there for the taking....
You would have to think it's extraordinary, no? Unless feeding tubes have been around for centuries (doubt it), then it's a relatively modern means of keeping a person alive. In which case, it's extraordinary.
Seems like (I have nothing to back this up with) that prior to the 20th century, or whenever feeding tubes were invented, you'd just let them die.
I was surprised to hear the other day that the sacraments work as intended even if the person is in a coma. Or in other words the person can get full pardon even if in a coma. The world is on this obsession of keeping the consciousness alive in a physical body or robotic body eternally, which of course is completely unnecessary because the consciousness will stay alive anyway and in fact damned or saved will get a brand new body regardless. So keeping someone on a feeding tube for 15 years is pointless.
Perhaps Bonaventure would be willing to migrate the relevant posts on the other thread to this one.
https://www.ncbcenter.org/resources-and-statements-cms/summary-nutrition-and-hydration-anh
I don't agree with the NCBC on everything, but they didn't come up with this themselves and are just elaborating on what was taught by Pope Benedict's CDF.
Here's a link to info that Bonaventure first posted.
https://www.wcbohio.com/articles/the-execution-of-terri-schiavo-1
And since Fr Anthony Cekada has bee accused of supporting murder, here's his argument, lifted from the above site.
Quote[1] Rev. Cekada's Original Statement: April of 2005
The Terri Schiavo Case and Extraordinary Means
by Father Anthony Cekada
I HAVE BEEN repeatedly asked for my thoughts on the Terri Schiavo case. Here, for the record, is a brief summary of my opinion.
Many traditional and "conservative" Catholics were misled by unprincipled politicians and pseudo-conservative talk-show hosts into thinking of it as a pro-life or anti-euthanasia case.
It was no such thing – and this demonstrates how wary one should be of turning for moral guidance to the advertiser-shilling blowhards of Fox News and the EIB Network.
Instead as Catholics we must turn to the teaching of theologians and the magisterium.
Here, the key issue is preserving a life by "extraordinary means," a concept first developed by the 16th-century Dominican theologian Vittoria as follows:
"If a sick man can take food or nourishment with a certain hope of life, he is required to take food as he would be required to give it to one who is sick. However, if the depression of spirits is so severe and there is present grave consternation in the appetitive power so that only with the greatest effort and as though through torture can the sick man take food, this is to be reckoned as an impossibility and therefore, he is excused, at least from mortal sin."
"It is one thing not to protect life and it is another not to destroy it. One is not held to protect his life as much as he can. Thus one is not held to use foods which are the best or most expensive even though those foods are the most healthful. Just as one is not held to live in the most healthful place, neither must one use the most healthful foods. If one uses food which men commonly use and in quantity which customarily suffices for the preservation of strength, even though one's life is shortened considerably, one would not sin. One is not held to employ all means to conserve life, but it is sufficient to employ the means which are intended for this purpose and which are congruous."
Other theologians subsequently refined and developed this teaching, until in 1957, we find Pope Pius XII explaining its application as follows:
"Normally [when prolonging life] one is held to use only ordinary means according to the circumstances of persons, places, times and cultures -- that is to say, means that do not involve any grave burdens for oneself or another. A more strict obligation would be too burdensome for most people and would render the attainment of a higher, more important good too difficult. Life, health, all temporal activities are in fact subordinated to spiritual ends. On the other hand, one is not forbidden to take more than the strictly necessary steps to preserve life and health, as long as he does not fail in some more serious duty."
These and similar passages in other authors led me to conclude that in the case of Terri Schiavo, the feeding tube, etc. constituted extraordinary means.
(Consider the "grave burdens" that such means would increasingly impose on society, now that medical science can keep the dying and unconscious going for years.)
This was also the conclusion of Bishop Donald Sanborn, who teaches moral theology – the branch of theology that deals with ascertaining whether specific human acts are morally good or morally evil.
Accordingly, as regards applying the principles of Catholic moral theology: (1) One could have continued to employ these extraordinary means to maintain Terri Schiavo's life; however (2) one would not have been obliged to do so.
It is false therefore to claim that Terri Schiavo was the victim of "euthanasia" or "murder." Further, in my opinion, Mrs. Schiavo's husband (as horrible a person as he seems to be) - and not her parents - had the sole right before God to determine whether these means should have continued to be used.
My comments here, like those on the Iraq War, may cause consternation for some good lay people. But when it comes to contemporary issues, my duty as a priest is to research the Church's teaching, tell you what it is, and tell you how to apply it.
Quote from: LausTibiChriste on April 18, 2024, 01:06:40 PMI know nothing about the Schiavo case nor the Church teaching on the matter, but since we're on a forum and my $0.02 is there for the taking....
You would have to think it's extraordinary, no? Unless feeding tubes have been around for centuries (doubt it), then it's a relatively modern means of keeping a person alive. In which case, it's extraordinary.
Seems like (I have nothing to back this up with) that prior to the 20th century, or whenever feeding tubes were invented, you'd just let them die.
This makes complete sense.
But not to those who argue that feeding tubes are Ordinary treatment. They say that removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tubes after she had spent 15 years immobile in a hospital bed as a result of extensive brain damage following a cardiac arrest and having to be fed by a tube inserted directly into her stomach, was an execution, or an act of murder.
Nonsense.
I'd be willing to bet that any artificial means of keeping a person a live is de facto extraordinary.
15 years is insane.
Fr. Cekada breaks down his arguments into three main points as to why he believes Terri Schiavo was not euthanized.
https://www.wcbohio.com/articles/the-execution-of-terri-schiavo-1
1) EXTRAORDINARY MEANS
2) WHO DECIDES
3) EMOTION OR PRINCIPLE?
It is also necessary to add a point 4 highlighting that even extraordinary means (not relevant to this case, but in case anyone maintains they are) are often morally required and the issue is nuanced and more than a question of simply ordinary vs extraordinary.
1) 1) "the feeding tube... constituted extraordinary means."
"Normally [when prolonging life] one is held to use only ordinary means according to the circumstances of persons, places, times and cultures -- that is to say, means that do not involve any grave burdens for oneself or another... the strictly necessary steps to preserve life and health." Pope Pius XII
"A medicine, treatment, etc., is to be considered an ordinary means if it can be obtained and used with relative convenience and if it offers reasonable hope of benefit...
It is important to note that, though the notions of ordinary and extraordinary remain the same, their applications can vary with changing circumstances. For example, major operations used to be considered extraordinary means of preserving life on two counts: first, because the pain was practically unbearable for most people; and secondly, because the outcome was often very uncertain, e.g., because of the danger of infection. Today we have the means of controlling both the pain and the danger of infection; hence, many operations that would have been extraordinary in former times have now become ordinary means of preserving life."
"In concrete cases it is not always easy to determine when a given procedure is an extraordinary means. It is not computed according to a mathematical formula, but according to the reasonable judgment of prudent and conscientious men." Fr. Kelly Manual
This case involves persons living in the United States in 2005 in one of many a worldwide "culture"
where feeding tubes are much less "burdensome" than any other means "to preserve health and life".
It is much less burdensome than cooking three wholesome meals a day and then trying to spoon feed it to a handicapped person. These particular persons even had $750,000 in "means" set aside for the sole purpose of alleviating any burden in preserving her health. Fr. Cekada puts forward the argument of the burden and expense to society, but every other form of care, no matter how ordinary, is much more burdensome, expensive, and less "convenient"
2) "Mrs. Schiavo's husband (as horrible a person as he seems to be) - and not her parents - had the sole right before God to determine whether these means should have continued to be used."
This is completely false and not based on any "principle", "Church standard" or "theology book"; it is his own invention.
Besides the numerous statements by the Church denying the pagan belief that the head of the family has authority to make life or death decisions over his wife and children, here is what the moral manuals say,
"It is fundamentally the patient himself who has the right to decide whether or not he shall continue with [even] a useless and extraordinary means which will prolong his intense suffering." Fr. McFadden
"the first rule concerning the doctor's duty: he must do what the patient wishes. It is the patient who has the right to use or to refuse the extraordinary means; hence, it is primarily the patient who must be consulted. Obviously there are many cases in which it is impossible to consult the patient, e.g., when he is delirious or in a coma, or when he is a small child. In these cases the right to make the decision is vested in those who are closest to the patient, i.e., husband, wife, parents, guardians... the relatives do not make this decision precisely in their own name, but rather as representing the patient; hence, they should try to determine what he would reasonably want done under the circumstances."
3) "The negative response to both these points was almost without exception based on emotion...
not...
principle...
the standard the Church...
a theology book"
Hopefully this post has only used principle, the standard the Church, and his own theology books to show that his points are false.
It is also important to point out to those unfamiliar with the case, that even the ordinary administration of food and water was forbidden by a court order and enforced by an armed police guard. Fr. Cekada does not contend that this was morally permissable. Yet it happened and it clearly shows that this was a case of euthanasia, which was his original point of contention.
Quote from: LausTibiChriste on April 18, 2024, 01:06:40 PMI know nothing about the Schiavo case nor the Church teaching on the matter, but since we're on a forum and my $0.02 is there for the taking....
You would have to think it's extraordinary, no? Unless feeding tubes have been around for centuries (doubt it), then it's a relatively modern means of keeping a person alive. In which case, it's extraordinary.
Seems like (I have nothing to back this up with) that prior to the 20th century, or whenever feeding tubes were invented, you'd just let them die.
From Fr. Cekada's own source:
"It is important to note that... many operations that would have been extraordinary in former times have now become ordinary means of preserving life."
Also, in this particular case, her family and nurses claimed that she was able to be fed normally.
The claim by doctors at the time that she "couldn't swallow" is clearly a lie, because when someone can't swallow it's a big deal, like when someone can't breathe (which she could) and you can die within minutes. You swallow constantly to keep yourself alive and not choke on your own saliva.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 18, 2024, 02:32:51 PMQuote from: LausTibiChriste on April 18, 2024, 01:06:40 PMI know nothing about the Schiavo case nor the Church teaching on the matter, but since we're on a forum and my $0.02 is there for the taking....
You would have to think it's extraordinary, no? Unless feeding tubes have been around for centuries (doubt it), then it's a relatively modern means of keeping a person alive. In which case, it's extraordinary.
Seems like (I have nothing to back this up with) that prior to the 20th century, or whenever feeding tubes were invented, you'd just let them die.
This makes complete sense.
But not according to...
... any "Catholic principles, Church teaching, or theology books."
Let's stick to the rules of the discussion as put forward by Fr. Cekada himself (who I have nothing against) and only use such sources, not our emotions.
Quote from: Miriam_M on April 18, 2024, 02:08:01 PMPerhaps Bonaventure would be willing to migrate the relevant posts on the other thread to this one.
Yes, I would appreciate that, because the original arguments are being somewhat misrepresented here.
Weren't her fluids withheld as well? I can't remember the exact details, I was a wee lad at the time.
Quote from: drummerboy on April 18, 2024, 04:56:39 PMWeren't her fluids withheld as well? I can't remember the exact details, I was a wee lad at the time.
Yes, and Cekada references that:
"A wicked husband still maintains his headship over the wife before God and his "domestic and paternal authority. He has the right to say yes or no to ice chips and Jello, unless and until an ecclesiastical or civil court, for a grave and just reason, legitimately impedes him from exercising his right."
The ice chips and Jell-O reference would only be for someone who could swallow.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 18, 2024, 03:51:06 PMQuote from: Miriam_M on April 18, 2024, 02:08:01 PMPerhaps Bonaventure would be willing to migrate the relevant posts on the other thread to this one.
Yes, I would appreciate that, because the original arguments are being somewhat misrepresented here.
I'm not sure how to do it. Perhaps
@Kaesekopf knows how to merge posts to this thread from another thread.
Quote from: Bonaventure on April 18, 2024, 05:15:25 PMQuote from: drummerboy on April 18, 2024, 04:56:39 PMWeren't her fluids withheld as well? I can't remember the exact details, I was a wee lad at the time.
Yes, and Cekada references that:
"A wicked husband still maintains his headship over the wife before God and his "domestic and paternal authority. He has the right to say yes or no to ice chips and Jello, unless and until an ecclesiastical or civil court, for a grave and just reason, legitimately impedes him from exercising his right."
The ice chips and Jell-O reference would only be for someone who could swallow.
Do ice chips and Jell-O constitute fluid and food? Or are they given to a patient in a coma in order to keep the mouth and lips moist?
Chips of ice dropped into a comatose patients mouth for the purpose of keeping the patient's mouth moist are not fluid and as for the Jell-O - how much was given? A teaspoonful or less? To help keep the mouth moist and maybe provide a bit of variety.
But this is not food and fluid. I hope this is not being used to claim that Terri Schiavo was able to take food and fluid orally.
It is essential to keep a comatose patient's mouth moist by these and other means.
Meanwhile, if Terri Schiavo has been able to eat and drink, she wouldn't have needed the feeding tube.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 18, 2024, 03:36:48 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 18, 2024, 02:32:51 PMQuote from: LausTibiChriste on April 18, 2024, 01:06:40 PMI know nothing about the Schiavo case nor the Church teaching on the matter, but since we're on a forum and my $0.02 is there for the taking....
You would have to think it's extraordinary, no? Unless feeding tubes have been around for centuries (doubt it), then it's a relatively modern means of keeping a person alive. In which case, it's extraordinary.
Seems like (I have nothing to back this up with) that prior to the 20th century, or whenever feeding tubes were invented, you'd just let them die.
This makes complete sense.
But not according to...
... any "Catholic principles, Church teaching, or theology books."
Let's stick to the rules of the discussion as put forward by Fr. Cekada himself (who I have nothing against) and only use such sources, not our emotions.
Agreed. You posted this:
"In concrete cases it is not always easy to determine when a given procedure is an extraordinary means. It is not computed according to a mathematical formula, but according to the reasonable judgment of prudent and conscientious men." Fr. Kelly ManualI'm not sure what the "Fr Kelly Manual" is, but assuming it's a pre-Vatican II moral theology manual (because I couldn't care less what JPII or the post Vatican II church says about anything), this in and of itself shows that one can have
differing opinions on any given case. In this case, Fr Cekada happened to have a different, minority opinion. I appreciate that you can discuss him and his position without demonizing him (or anyone who might agree with him). I do have a request though: can you format your comments with italics, so it is easier to distinguish them from the other quotes?
I actually do not know where I stand on this case at this time. When this was happening, I was still a NO dupe, and I was completely against the tube removal. After considering Fr C's points, I realized that perhaps I should take a much closer look at it than I did when my emotions were running wild years ago. I have to admit that there does seem to be quite a bit to consider, but as of now I lean towards this being extraordinary means.
I happen to know a Bishop who disagreed with Father, but he remains respectful of Fr C and his opinion noting that theological disagreements such as this is just more proof that we do not have a pope who is the only one who can definitively rule on them.
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 05:45:39 AMQuote from: queen.saints on April 18, 2024, 03:36:48 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 18, 2024, 02:32:51 PMQuote from: LausTibiChriste on April 18, 2024, 01:06:40 PMI know nothing about the Schiavo case nor the Church teaching on the matter, but since we're on a forum and my $0.02 is there for the taking....
You would have to think it's extraordinary, no? Unless feeding tubes have been around for centuries (doubt it), then it's a relatively modern means of keeping a person alive. In which case, it's extraordinary.
Seems like (I have nothing to back this up with) that prior to the 20th century, or whenever feeding tubes were invented, you'd just let them die.
This makes complete sense.
But not according to...
... any "Catholic principles, Church teaching, or theology books."
Let's stick to the rules of the discussion as put forward by Fr. Cekada himself (who I have nothing against) and only use such sources, not our emotions.
Agreed. You posted this:
"In concrete cases it is not always easy to determine when a given procedure is an extraordinary means. It is not computed according to a mathematical formula, but according to the reasonable judgment of prudent and conscientious men." Fr. Kelly Manual
I'm not sure what the "Fr Kelly Manual" is, but assuming it's a pre-Vatican II moral theology manual (because I couldn't care less what JPII or the post Vatican II church says about anything), this in and of itself shows that one can have differing opinions on any given case. In this case, Fr Cekada happened to have a different, minority opinion. I appreciate that you can discuss him and his position without demonizing him (or anyone who might agree with him).
I actually do not know where I stand on this case at this time. When this was happening, I was still a NO dupe, and I was completely against the tube removal. After considering Fr C's points, I realized that perhaps I should take a much closer look at it than I did when my emotions were running wild years ago. I have to admit that there does seem to be quite a bit to consider, but as of now I lean towards this being extraordinary means.
I happen to know a Bishop who disagreed with Father, but he remains respectful of Fr C and his opinion noting that theological disagreements such as this is just more proof that we do not have a pope who is the only one who can definitively rule on them.
Yes, as I said (not to you) in the other thread, "perhaps look into the actual facts of the case" first.
That's a reasonable place to start for anyone and I don't mean it in a snarky way at all. We all sometimes jump into things.
So far there are statements about "cruel and unusual punishment" from someone who doesn't even know basic facts about the case such as that the woman in question was able to breathe perfectly, was not in a coma, was not experiencing any pain from her treatment, and was subsequently denied even basic hydration for two weeks, by court order, which was ultimately put down as the official "cause of death".
Since the thread started by Fr. Cekada himself, the same person has been using the terms "ordinary" and "extraordinary" means all while admitting they have not read the excerpts from the moral manuals cited by Frs. Cekada and Jenkins explaining these terms.
If anyone will take the time to actually read the debate posted multiple times
https://www.wcbohio.com/articles/the-execution-of-terri-schiavo-1
they would see that Fr. Cekada himself has to basically admit in the end that his arguments do not actually apply to the case of Terri Schiavo, and he changes the argument to whether or not a feeding tube is ALWAYS ordinary means, when the actual question was not that, but rather whether it was ordinary means in this particular case.
What Fr. Jenkins and others clearly also showed was that even outside the question of the feeding tube- in this particular case- all the elements of "euthanasia" as defined by Fr. Cekada's own sources, were present.
"Euthanasia usually implies the use of some positive means to end life: e.g., taking poison, a lethal dose of some drug, and so forth. But death can also be brought about in a negative way: i.e., by not taking or giving something which is necessary for sustaining life; and in some cases this failure to take or give what is necessary for preserving life is equivalently euthanasia."
"Every individual has the obligation to take the ordinary means of preserving his life. Deliberate neglect of such means is tantamount to suicide. Consequently, every patient has the duty to submit to any treatment which is clearly an ordinary means; and his doctor, as well as the nurses and hospital personnel, has the duty to use such means in treating the patient. To do less than this is equivalently euthanasia."
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 06:28:38 AMQuote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 05:45:39 AMQuote from: queen.saints on April 18, 2024, 03:36:48 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 18, 2024, 02:32:51 PMQuote from: LausTibiChriste on April 18, 2024, 01:06:40 PMI know nothing about the Schiavo case nor the Church teaching on the matter, but since we're on a forum and my $0.02 is there for the taking....
You would have to think it's extraordinary, no? Unless feeding tubes have been around for centuries (doubt it), then it's a relatively modern means of keeping a person alive. In which case, it's extraordinary.
Seems like (I have nothing to back this up with) that prior to the 20th century, or whenever feeding tubes were invented, you'd just let them die.
This makes complete sense.
But not according to...
... any "Catholic principles, Church teaching, or theology books."
Let's stick to the rules of the discussion as put forward by Fr. Cekada himself (who I have nothing against) and only use such sources, not our emotions.
Agreed. You posted this:
"In concrete cases it is not always easy to determine when a given procedure is an extraordinary means. It is not computed according to a mathematical formula, but according to the reasonable judgment of prudent and conscientious men." Fr. Kelly Manual
I'm not sure what the "Fr Kelly Manual" is, but assuming it's a pre-Vatican II moral theology manual (because I couldn't care less what JPII or the post Vatican II church says about anything), this in and of itself shows that one can have differing opinions on any given case. In this case, Fr Cekada happened to have a different, minority opinion. I appreciate that you can discuss him and his position without demonizing him (or anyone who might agree with him).
I actually do not know where I stand on this case at this time. When this was happening, I was still a NO dupe, and I was completely against the tube removal. After considering Fr C's points, I realized that perhaps I should take a much closer look at it than I did when my emotions were running wild years ago. I have to admit that there does seem to be quite a bit to consider, but as of now I lean towards this being extraordinary means.
I happen to know a Bishop who disagreed with Father, but he remains respectful of Fr C and his opinion noting that theological disagreements such as this is just more proof that we do not have a pope who is the only one who can definitively rule on them.
Yes, as I said (not to you) in the other thread, "perhaps look into the actual facts of the case" first.
That's a reasonable place to start for anyone and I don't mean it in a snarky way at all. We all sometimes jump into things.
So far there are statements about "cruel and unusual punishment" from someone who doesn't even know basic facts about the case such as that the woman in question was able to breathe perfectly, was not in a coma, was not experiencing any pain from her treatment, and was subsequently denied even basic hydration for two weeks, by court order, which was ultimately put down as the official "cause of death".
Since the thread started by Fr. Cekada himself, the same person has been using the terms "ordinary" and "extraordinary" means all while admitting they have not read the excerpts from the moral manuals cited by Frs. Cekada and Jenkins explaining these terms.
If anyone will take the time to actually read the debate posted multiple times
https://www.wcbohio.com/articles/the-execution-of-terri-schiavo-1
they would see that Fr. Cekada himself has to basically admit in the end that his arguments do not actually apply to the case of Terri Schiavo, and he changes the argument to whether or not a feeding tube is ALWAYS ordinary means, when the actual question was not that, but rather whether it was ordinary means in this particular case.
What Fr. Jenkins and others clearly also showed was that even outside the question of the feeding tube- in this particular case- all the elements of "euthanasia" as defined by Fr. Cekada's own sources, were present.
"Euthanasia usually implies the use of some positive means to end life: e.g., taking poison, a lethal dose of some drug, and so forth. But death can also be brought about in a negative way: i.e., by not taking or giving something which is necessary for sustaining life; and in some cases this failure to take or give what is necessary for preserving life is equivalently euthanasia."
"Every individual has the obligation to take the ordinary means of preserving his life. Deliberate neglect of such means is tantamount to suicide. Consequently, every patient has the duty to submit to any treatment which is clearly an ordinary means; and his doctor, as well as the nurses and hospital personnel, has the duty to use such means in treating the patient. To do less than this is equivalently euthanasia."
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
Please quote where he does the bolded.
"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?"
This was not what his original statement said. The original question was whether or not this particular woman was euthanized.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 07:06:29 AM"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?"
This was not what his original statement said. The original question was whether or not this particular woman was euthanized.
I don't see a shift at all. His original statement was the following:
Accordingly, as regards applying the principles of Catholic moral theology: (1) One could have continued to employ these extraordinary means to maintain Terri Schiavo's life; however (2) one would not have been obliged to do so. It is false therefore to claim that Terri Schiavo was the victim of "euthanasia" or "murder".It seems to me that he is still considering the same issue of murder (euthanasia) in this particular case by discussing the Fifth Commandment (i.e.. whether inserting/keeping/removing a feeding tube constitutes murder), but tries to make it clearer. I see nowhere that he is "admitting" his arguments don't apply nor "changing" his arguments.
Again, what I see is that it is possible to have different opinions on how to apply Catholic moral theology in this case.
I remember hearing one of the Audio Sancto priests preach on this topic. Very sobering.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 06:28:38 AMSo far there are statements about "cruel and unusual punishment" from someone who doesn't even know basic facts about the case such as that the woman in question was able to breathe perfectly, was not in a coma, was not experiencing any pain from her treatment, and was subsequently denied even basic hydration for two weeks, by court order, which was ultimately put down as the official "cause of death".
So, what are the basic facts of the case?
Terri Schiavo suffered severe brain damage following a cardiac arrest at her home which was likely brought on by her bulimia and the constant binge/vomit cycle that causes so much damage to the body. Bulimics I have known confirm how dangerous this is.
She couldn't drink or eat - but her mouth had to be kept moist, hence the slivers of ice and Jell-O.
And she couldn't communicate.
After 15 years in this state, immobile in a hospital bed, being fed through a tube in her stomach, unable to communicate and showing no signs of recovery, her husband and doctors decided, in the face of massive protests, to remove the feeding tubes and let her body die.
And the accusations of murder and euthanasia have not stopped since. So I would like to ask you, queen.saints, why you are so certain that Terri Schiavo was not in distress and that her treatment was not troubling for her?
The doctor referred to in Bonaventure's post had never examined Terri Schiavo in person and only relied on the notes and scans. Claims that Terri Schiavo could eat and drink turn out to refer to slivers of ice and Jello used the moisten the mouth of anyone in a coma or a prolonged unconscious state.
You talk blithely of tube feeding as if it was just another Ordinary treatment without apparently considering how distressing it could be, especially for someone with an eating disorder.
I agree that for someone with brain damage in an unconscious state, with a reasonable hope of recovery and for a limited period, a feeding tube would definitely be appropriate Extraordinary treatment But Terri Schiavo had no hope of recovery and had been in that situation for 15 years.
Feeding tubes should never be considered Ordinary treatment - because they aren't. And to keep someone in that state for 15 years when there is no hope of recovery is definitely, to my mind, cruel and unusual punishment.
But that could be because I have a 'subjective repugnance' towards being immobile and unable to communicate in a hospital bed while food is pumped into by stomach via a feeding tube - for 15 years.
And I'd put money on this being a lot worse for someone with an eating disorder. Think about it.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 08:15:10 AMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 06:28:38 AMSo far there are statements about "cruel and unusual punishment" from someone who doesn't even know basic facts about the case such as that the woman in question was able to breathe perfectly, was not in a coma, was not experiencing any pain from her treatment, and was subsequently denied even basic hydration for two weeks, by court order, which was ultimately put down as the official "cause of death".
So, what are the basic facts of the case?
Terri Schiavo suffered severe brain damage following a cardiac arrest at her home which was likely brought on by her bulimia and the constant binge/vomit cycle that causes so much damage to the body. Bulimics I have known confirm how dangerous this is.
She couldn't drink or eat - but her mouth had to be kept moist, hence the slivers of ice and Jell-O.
And she couldn't communicate.
After 15 years in this state, immobile in a hospital bed, being fed through a tube in her stomach, unable to communicate and showing no signs of recovery, her husband and doctors decided, in the face of massive protests, to remove the feeding tubes and let her body die.
And the accusations of murder and euthanasia have not stopped since. So I would like to ask you, queen.saints, why you are so certain that Terri Schiavo was not in distress and that her treatment was not troubling for her?
The doctor referred to in Bonaventure's post had never examined Terri Schiavo in person and only relied on the notes and scans. Claims that Terri Schiavo could eat and drink turn out to refer to slivers of ice and Jello used the moisten the mouth of anyone in a coma or a prolonged unconscious state.
You talk blithely of tube feeding as if it was just another Ordinary treatment without apparently considering how distressing it could be, especially for someone with an eating disorder.
I agree that for someone with brain damage in an unconscious state, with a reasonable hope of recovery and for a limited period, a feeding tube would definitely be appropriate Extraordinary treatment But Terri Schiavo had no hope of recovery and had been in that situation for 15 years.
Feeding tubes should never be considered Ordinary treatment - because they aren't. And to keep someone in that state for 15 years when there is no hope of recovery is definitely, to my mind, cruel and unusual punishment.
But that could be because I have a 'subjective repugnance' towards being immobile and unable to communicate in a hospital bed while food is pumped into by stomach via a feeding tube - for 15 years.
And I'd put money on this being a lot worse for someone with an eating disorder. Think about it.
It would be interesting whether an expert in eating disorders (medical doctor, therapist, etc) ever chimed in on this case.
Here's an article regarding what the medical examiner found during Terri's autopsy:
https://baptistnews.com/article/terri-schiavo-autopsy-says-she-was-brain-damaged-blind-not-abused/
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 07:55:43 AMI don't see a shift at all. His original statement was the following:
Accordingly, as regards applying the principles of Catholic moral theology: (1) One could have continued to employ these extraordinary means to maintain Terri Schiavo's life; however (2) one would not have been obliged to do so. It is false therefore to claim that Terri Schiavo was the victim of "euthanasia" or "murder".
It seems to me that he is still considering the same issue of murder (euthanasia) in this particular case by discussing the Fifth Commandment (i.e.. whether inserting/keeping/removing a feeding tube constitutes murder), but tries to make it clearer. I see nowhere that he is "admitting" his arguments don't apply nor "changing" his arguments.
Again, what I see is that it is possible to have different opinions on how to apply Catholic moral theology in this case.
His original statement was that the Terri Shiavo case was not an anti-euthanisia issue.
Ordinary means were defined by Manuals that Fr. Cekada himself either used to be,
"all medicines, treatments, and operations, which offer a reasonable hope of benefit for the patient and which can be obtained and used without excessive expense, pain, or other inconvenience."
Fr. Cekada was under the impression that feeding tubes were excessively expensive and inconvenient, a burden on society. But it was shown that here (and in most cases) they are less expensive and inconvenient than even regular feeding, which we are bound to provide. They are certainly less expensive and burdensome than many treatments which are indisputably ordinary means. They could theoretically be excessively painful, but here (and in most cases) they were not. They were providing the benefit of keeping her alive and comfortable.
What, therefore, is the basis for claiming they are extraordinary? In some theoretical circumstance, in which it were excessively painful, expensive, or inconvenient, then, yes, one would not be obliged to accept such treatment and it would not be a mortal sin. But that was not the case here.
However, even if it were extraordinary, his second argument is that the husband has the right to make the decision to deny such treatment. (He also makes the remarkable claim that a husband can even deny forms of water, which is clearly ordinary means, because of his headship.)
But this is false.
Only the individual has the right to accept or refuse even extraordinary means. Even extraordinary means that are useless and torturous (which these were not).
"it is fundamentally the patient himself who has the right to decide whether or not he shall continue with a useless and extraordinary means which will prolong his intense suffering. It would be rash, indeed, to pose the question to him in his present condition, and it might be equally rash for others to make the decision for him. Who but God knows what goes on in the mind of such a person? Who but God knows what spiritual benefit such suffering may hold for the patient." Fr. McFadden
As even pro-euthanasia advocates have pointed out, the wishes of Theresa were never seriously considered and no evidence presented suggesting she wanted to die the like of which wouldn't have been thrown out under all legal precedent. This was fundamentally a "quality of life" case, where the judge decided she should die, because she had no quality of life, not because she wanted it, or because the feeding tube was excessively burdensome on anyone.
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=concomm
But even if a feeding tube were somehow extraordinary means in this case, which it was not by any definition of the term used in Catholic theology
and even if it could have been ascertained that she would not have wanted to accept that extraordinary treatment, which it never was
and even if it were true that she could not eat orally, which many close to her deny
and even it were true that she had miraculously survived being unable to swallow her own saliva for 15 years
and could therefore not swallow even a tiny amount of water
This would still be a case of euthanasia. Because whether or not any of that were true, the fact remains that she was denied even attempting ordinary means. The doctors never even tried to administer food normally to her. There was a court order in place and an armed police man on guard at all times to make sure that no one could even try to give her water.
"
The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
Question: if Terri Schiavo could communicate that she wanted the feeding tube out, would she be forced to keep it in? Would those against her husband doing it still be against her doing it? Would the feeding tube still be considered "ordinary" means?
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 11:53:47 AMQuestion: if Terri Schiavo could communicate that she wanted the feeding tube out, would she be forced to keep it in? Would those against her husband doing it still be against her doing it? Would the feeding tube still be considered "ordinary" means?
If feeding tubes were considered Ordinary treatment by the Church, then she would be obliged to keep it in.
But it's an academic question since she couldn't possibly communicate
According to the autopsy posted above by Baylee,
QuoteThe autopsy results for Terri Schiavo, released by Florida officials June 15, conclude that she was not abused prior to collapsing and lapsing into an unconscious state 15 years ago, that she was blind at the time of her death, and that her brain had atrophied to half the normal size.
The report, released more than two months after her March 31 death, also concluded that the 41-year-old Florida woman could not have received enough food or hydration by mouth to sustain life.....
.....Schiavo had been in what court-appointed physicians diagnosed as a "persistent vegetative state" since 1990, when she collapsed from what was initially diagnosed as a heart attack brought on by an eating disorder. Her brain was denied oxygen for an extended period of time, leaving her with significant neurological damage.....
..... Doctors also concluded, while Schiavo was alive, that most of her cerebral cortex had ceased functioning. Her brain stem, they said, was reflexively regulating the bare essentials of life, such as her heartbeat, breathing and digestive processes.
https://baptistnews.com/article/terri-schiavo-autopsy-says-she-was-brain-damaged-blind-not-abused/
Remember, the doctors who diagnosed Terri Schiavo's "persistent vegetative state" had actually examined her in person, unlike Dr Greber who never met her.
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 09:49:47 AMHere's an article regarding what the medical examiner found during Terri's autopsy:
https://baptistnews.com/article/terri-schiavo-autopsy-says-she-was-brain-damaged-blind-not-abused/
The fact that they need to rely on an autopsy report to try to ascertain whether or not she could swallow, eat, and drink is simply highlighting the fact that she was not supplied the most ordinary means of preserving life (in accordance with the court order to cease all life-prolonging measures) and died an excruciating death without even a drop of water allowed to touch her lips for 13 days.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 11:01:59 AMBecause whether or not any of that were true, the fact remains that she was denied even attempting ordinary means. The doctors never even tried to administer food normally to her. There was a court order in place and an armed police man on guard at all times to make sure that no one could even try to give her water.
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
I don't know why you persist in saying such things.
Terri Schiavo could not take food or water by Ordinary means. Why do you say that her doctors didn't even try? Of course they tried.
And the armed guards were there to prevent the protesting crowds outside from attempting to storm the hospital with food and drink, as they had threatened to do.
Terri Schiavo's brain had atrophied to half its normal size. And her cerebral cortex was only capable of
"reflexively regulating the bare essentials of life".
There was no possibility of a recovery. She was blind, and in a "persistent vegetative state" according the the doctors who examined her, unlike the doctor referred to by you and Bonaventure.
There was nothing Ordinary about any of this.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 12:35:41 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 11:01:59 AMBecause whether or not any of that were true, the fact remains that she was denied even attempting ordinary means. The doctors never even tried to administer food normally to her. There was a court order in place and an armed police man on guard at all times to make sure that no one could even try to give her water.
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
I don't know why you persist in saying such things.
Terri Schiavo could not take food or water by Ordinary means. Why do you say that her doctors didn't even try? Of course they tried.
And the armed guards were there to prevent the protesting crowds outside from attempting to storm the hospital with food and drink, as they had threatened to do.
Terri Schiavo's brain had atrophied to half its normal size. And her cerebral cortex was only capable of "reflexively regulating the bare essentials of life".
There was no possibility of a recovery. She was blind, and in a "persistent vegetative state" according the the doctors who examined her, unlike the doctor referred to by you and Bonaventure.
There was nothing Ordinary about any of this.
Wow, it's truly astonishing how you refuse to research this case at all or read any of the links provided before making statements.
There was an armed guard in the room making sure she didn't receive any water or nourishment whatsoever from her priest and family, including Holy Communion.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 12:23:54 PMQuote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 09:49:47 AMHere's an article regarding what the medical examiner found during Terri's autopsy:
https://baptistnews.com/article/terri-schiavo-autopsy-says-she-was-brain-damaged-blind-not-abused/
The fact that they need to rely on an autopsy report to try to ascertain whether or not she could swallow, eat, and drink is simply highlighting the fact that she was not supplied the most ordinary means of preserving life (in accordance with the court order to cease all life-prolonging measures) and died an excruciating death without even a drop of water allowed to touch her lips for 13 days.
They didn't have to rely on an autopsy report. Why do you keep persisting with your false claims? The doctors were already well aware of Terri Schiavo's condition and that she could not accept food or liquid orally, a fact which you consistently deny.
And how do you know what her death was like? If her brain had atrophied to half its normal size and her cerebral cortex was only capable of reflexive action, what sensations was she capable of?
And if she had been capable of feeling pain and distress, what makes you so sure that the feeding tubes didn't cause her suffering?
If a damaged brain is only capable of reflexive action , was Terri Schiavo even alive? What does the Church say?
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 12:41:27 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 12:35:41 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 11:01:59 AMBecause whether or not any of that were true, the fact remains that she was denied even attempting ordinary means. The doctors never even tried to administer food normally to her. There was a court order in place and an armed police man on guard at all times to make sure that no one could even try to give her water.
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
I don't know why you persist in saying such things.
Terri Schiavo could not take food or water by Ordinary means. Why do you say that her doctors didn't even try? Of course they tried.
And the armed guards were there to prevent the protesting crowds outside from attempting to storm the hospital with food and drink, as they had threatened to do.
Terri Schiavo's brain had atrophied to half its normal size. And her cerebral cortex was only capable of "reflexively regulating the bare essentials of life".
There was no possibility of a recovery. She was blind, and in a "persistent vegetative state" according the the doctors who examined her, unlike the doctor referred to by you and Bonaventure.
There was nothing Ordinary about any of this.
Wow, it's truly astonishing how you refuse to research this case at all or read any of the links provided before making statements.
There was an armed guard in the room making sure she didn't receive any water or nourishment whatsoever from her priest and family, including Holy Communion.
I have researched the case, extensively, which is why I know that your argument is based on emotion and rumour.
When will you address the point I have repeatedly made that Dr Greber never examined Terri Schiavo in person?
When will you address that fact that she could not take food and fluid orally according to the doctors who examined her? I have pointed this out repeatedly and all you do is repeat the same false claim?
You keep claiming that Terri Schiavo was capable of taking food and fluid orally when she clearly wasn't.
Why do you do this?
And why were her parents and priest trying to make her drink water when she clearly couldn't?
Quote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 12:18:09 PMAccording to the autopsy posted above by Baylee,
QuoteThe autopsy results for Terri Schiavo, released by Florida officials June 15, conclude that she was not abused prior to collapsing and lapsing into an unconscious state 15 years ago, that she was blind at the time of her death, and that her brain had atrophied to half the normal size.
The report, released more than two months after her March 31 death, also concluded that the 41-year-old Florida woman could not have received enough food or hydration by mouth to sustain life.....
.....Schiavo had been in what court-appointed physicians diagnosed as a "persistent vegetative state" since 1990, when she collapsed from what was initially diagnosed as a heart attack brought on by an eating disorder. Her brain was denied oxygen for an extended period of time, leaving her with significant neurological damage.....
..... Doctors also concluded, while Schiavo was alive, that most of her cerebral cortex had ceased functioning. Her brain stem, they said, was reflexively regulating the bare essentials of life, such as her heartbeat, breathing and digestive processes.
https://baptistnews.com/article/terri-schiavo-autopsy-says-she-was-brain-damaged-blind-not-abused/
Remember, the doctors who diagnosed Terri Schiavo's "persistent vegetative state" had actually examined her in person, unlike Dr Greber who never met her.
It does seem as if the autopsy report agrees with what HER doctors said before she died.
This part piqued my interest:
Ability to be rehabilitated: The report determined that there was no way to reverse the brain damage that had incapacitated Schiavo. It also noted that attempting to feed her or provide her with hydration orally — which the Schindlers argued at one point she was capable of — was not possible and could have resulted in "aspiration," or choking.I need to go back and look at all of the Church quotes provided re: ordinary and extraordinary means from both Fr Cekada and elsewhere. I'm wondering whether any of this information would render keeping her on the feeding tube "extraordinary".
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 11:01:59 AMQuote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 07:55:43 AMI don't see a shift at all. His original statement was the following:
Accordingly, as regards applying the principles of Catholic moral theology: (1) One could have continued to employ these extraordinary means to maintain Terri Schiavo's life; however (2) one would not have been obliged to do so. It is false therefore to claim that Terri Schiavo was the victim of "euthanasia" or "murder".
It seems to me that he is still considering the same issue of murder (euthanasia) in this particular case by discussing the Fifth Commandment (i.e.. whether inserting/keeping/removing a feeding tube constitutes murder), but tries to make it clearer. I see nowhere that he is "admitting" his arguments don't apply nor "changing" his arguments.
Again, what I see is that it is possible to have different opinions on how to apply Catholic moral theology in this case.
His original statement was that the Terri Shiavo case was not an anti-euthanisia issue.
Ordinary means were defined by Manuals that Fr. Cekada himself either used to be,
"all medicines, treatments, and operations, which offer a reasonable hope of benefit for the patient and which can be obtained and used without excessive expense, pain, or other inconvenience."
Fr. Cekada was under the impression that feeding tubes were excessively expensive and inconvenient, a burden on society. But it was shown that here (and in most cases) they are less expensive and inconvenient than even regular feeding, which we are bound to provide. They are certainly less expensive and burdensome than many treatments which are indisputably ordinary means. They could theoretically be excessively painful, but here (and in most cases) they were not. They were providing the benefit of keeping her alive and comfortable.
What, therefore, is the basis for claiming they are extraordinary? In some theoretical circumstance, in which it were excessively painful, expensive, or inconvenient, then, yes, one would not be obliged to accept such treatment and it would not be a mortal sin. But that was not the case here.
However, even if it were extraordinary, his second argument is that the husband has the right to make the decision to deny such treatment. (He also makes the remarkable claim that a husband can even deny forms of water, which is clearly ordinary means, because of his headship.)
But this is false.
Only the individual has the right to accept or refuse even extraordinary means. Even extraordinary means that are useless and torturous (which these were not).
"it is fundamentally the patient himself who has the right to decide whether or not he shall continue with a useless and extraordinary means which will prolong his intense suffering. It would be rash, indeed, to pose the question to him in his present condition, and it might be equally rash for others to make the decision for him. Who but God knows what goes on in the mind of such a person? Who but God knows what spiritual benefit such suffering may hold for the patient." Fr. McFadden
As even pro-euthanasia advocates have pointed out, the wishes of Theresa were never seriously considered and no evidence presented suggesting she wanted to die the like of which wouldn't have been thrown out under all legal precedent. This was fundamentally a "quality of life" case, where the judge decided she should die, because she had no quality of life, not because she wanted it, or because the feeding tube was excessively burdensome on anyone.
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=concomm
But even if a feeding tube were somehow extraordinary means in this case, which it was not by any definition of the term used in Catholic theology
and even if it could have been ascertained that she would not have wanted to accept that extraordinary treatment, which it never was
and even if it were true that she could not eat orally, which many close to her deny
and even it were true that she had miraculously survived being unable to swallow her own saliva for 15 years
and could therefore not swallow even a tiny amount of water
This would still be a case of euthanasia.
Because whether or not any of that were true, the fact remains that she was denied even attempting ordinary means. The doctors never even tried to administer food normally to her. There was a court order in place and an armed police man on guard at all times to make sure that no one could even try to give her water.
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
I will go back and read his statements as well as his posts here. I'm still not seeing a shift, but a logical clarification given the reactions he got from others who insisted that this was a case about euthanasia.
"On February 28, 2005, the Schindlers filed a motion, asking for permission to attempt to provide Schiavo with "Food and Water by Natural Means". This second motion asked for permission to "attempt to feed" Schiavo by mouth. Judge Greer denied the second motion on March 8"
https://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder030805.pdf
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 01:05:42 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 11:01:59 AMBut even if a feeding tube were somehow extraordinary means in this case, which it was not by any definition of the term used in Catholic theology
and even if it could have been ascertained that she would not have wanted to accept that extraordinary treatment, which it never was
and even if it were true that she could not eat orally, which many close to her deny
and even it were true that she had miraculously survived being unable to swallow her own saliva for 15 years
and could therefore not swallow even a tiny amount of water
This would still be a case of euthanasia.
Because whether or not any of that were true, the fact remains that she was denied even attempting ordinary means. The doctors never even tried to administer food normally to her. There was a court order in place and an armed police man on guard at all times to make sure that no one could even try to give her water.
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
I will go back and read his statements as well as his posts here. I'm still not seeing a shift, but a logical clarification given the reactions he got from others who insisted that this was a case about euthanasia.
Failure to supply someone with ordinary means of preserving life is euthanasia and that indisputably happened in this case.
QuoteI need to go back and look at all of the Church quotes provided re: ordinary and extraordinary means from both Fr Cekada and elsewhere.
Yes.
On a side note: what IS the deal with the quoting function here? The above post makes it look like I wrote what queen wrote. :rant:
https://www.priestsforlife.org/library/4535-terri-schiavos-final-hours-an-eyewitness-account
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 01:18:00 PMOn a side note: what IS the deal with the quoting function here? The above post makes it look like I wrote what queen wrote. :rant:
Yes!! Very annoying.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 01:18:46 PMQuote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 01:18:00 PMOn a side note: what IS the deal with the quoting function here? The above post makes it look like I wrote what queen wrote. :rant:
Yes!! Very annoying.
Wait. It's fine now. Did you edit it? Or am I losing it!?
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 01:19:53 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 01:18:46 PMQuote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 01:18:00 PMOn a side note: what IS the deal with the quoting function here? The above post makes it look like I wrote what queen wrote. :rant:
Yes!! Very annoying.
Wait. It's fine now. Did you edit it? Or am I losing it!?
I tried to edit it, but wasn't sure if it worked. Glad to know it did.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 12:57:26 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 12:41:27 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 12:35:41 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 11:01:59 AMBecause whether or not any of that were true, the fact remains that she was denied even attempting ordinary means. The doctors never even tried to administer food normally to her. There was a court order in place and an armed police man on guard at all times to make sure that no one could even try to give her water.
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
I don't know why you persist in saying such things.
Terri Schiavo could not take food or water by Ordinary means. Why do you say that her doctors didn't even try? Of course they tried.
And the armed guards were there to prevent the protesting crowds outside from attempting to storm the hospital with food and drink, as they had threatened to do.
Terri Schiavo's brain had atrophied to half its normal size. And her cerebral cortex was only capable of "reflexively regulating the bare essentials of life".
There was no possibility of a recovery. She was blind, and in a "persistent vegetative state" according the the doctors who examined her, unlike the doctor referred to by you and Bonaventure.
There was nothing Ordinary about any of this.
Wow, it's truly astonishing how you refuse to research this case at all or read any of the links provided before making statements.
There was an armed guard in the room making sure she didn't receive any water or nourishment whatsoever from her priest and family, including Holy Communion.
I have researched the case, extensively, which is why I know that your argument is based on emotion and rumour.
When will you address the point I have repeatedly made that Dr Greber never examined Terri Schiavo in person?
When will you address that fact that she could not take food and fluid orally according to the doctors who examined her? I have pointed this out repeatedly and all you do is repeat the same false claim?
You keep claiming that Terri Schiavo was capable of taking food and fluid orally when she clearly wasn't.
Why do you do this?
And why were her parents and priest trying to make her drink water when she clearly couldn't?
I think these are valid questions! I'm finding all of the information out there overwhelming, but I keep going back to: this whole situation isn't cut and dried/black and white. I think too many want to make it so.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 01:06:07 PM"On February 28, 2005, the Schindlers filed a motion, asking for permission to attempt to provide Schiavo with "Food and Water by Natural Means". This second motion asked for permission to "attempt to feed" Schiavo by mouth. Judge Greer denied the second motion on March 8"
https://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder030805.pdf
It's understandable that Terri Schiavo's parents couldn't bring themselves to accept the reality of their daughter's condition.
But why are you so emotionally invested in denying what her doctors and the autopsy report said?
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 01:49:20 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 12:57:26 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 12:41:27 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 12:35:41 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 11:01:59 AMBecause whether or not any of that were true, the fact remains that she was denied even attempting ordinary means. The doctors never even tried to administer food normally to her. There was a court order in place and an armed police man on guard at all times to make sure that no one could even try to give her water.
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
I don't know why you persist in saying such things.
Terri Schiavo could not take food or water by Ordinary means. Why do you say that her doctors didn't even try? Of course they tried.
And the armed guards were there to prevent the protesting crowds outside from attempting to storm the hospital with food and drink, as they had threatened to do.
Terri Schiavo's brain had atrophied to half its normal size. And her cerebral cortex was only capable of "reflexively regulating the bare essentials of life".
There was no possibility of a recovery. She was blind, and in a "persistent vegetative state" according the the doctors who examined her, unlike the doctor referred to by you and Bonaventure.
There was nothing Ordinary about any of this.
Wow, it's truly astonishing how you refuse to research this case at all or read any of the links provided before making statements.
There was an armed guard in the room making sure she didn't receive any water or nourishment whatsoever from her priest and family, including Holy Communion.
I have researched the case, extensively, which is why I know that your argument is based on emotion and rumour.
When will you address the point I have repeatedly made that Dr Greber never examined Terri Schiavo in person?
When will you address that fact that she could not take food and fluid orally according to the doctors who examined her? I have pointed this out repeatedly and all you do is repeat the same false claim?
You keep claiming that Terri Schiavo was capable of taking food and fluid orally when she clearly wasn't.
Why do you do this?
And why were her parents and priest trying to make her drink water when she clearly couldn't?
I think these are valid questions! I'm finding all of the information out there overwhelming, but I keep going back to: this whole situation isn't cut and dried/black and white. I think too many want to make it so.
Queen.saints refuses to address these questions
The problem with the quote function lies with the 'Quick Reply' box.
You have to leave the thread in order to clear it of previous text.
It is truly annoying.
CATHOLIC MEDICAL ASSOCIATION Upholding the Principles of the Catholic Faith in the Science and Practice of Medicine
Find a Catholic Physician
When to Recommend a PEG Tube: A Decision Tree for Clinicans from a Catholic Perspective
The question of assisted nutrition and hydration often presents great challenges not only for patients and families, but also for physicians. Catholic moral teaching can be of great help to all people of good will in meeting this challenge. An article issued in the February 2012 Linacre Quarterly by the Catholic Medical Association's Ad-Hoc PEG Tube Study Group provides resources for ethical and clinical decision making.
The question of tube feeding often presents great challenges for the physician. Catholic moral teaching can be of great help to all people of good will in meeting this challenge. The Church teaches that tube feeding is, in principle, ordinary care and hence morally obligatory. How should clinicians go about deciding when to recommend tube feeding in a manner that serves the best interests of the patient and is in harmony with the Church's teaching? A PEG tube should be recommended when a patient is not eating or drinking adequately, has more than a short-term need, is not imminently dying, and has no contraindication to a PEG. This article presents a step-by-step discussion of the decision-making process to assist physicians and other health-care professionals. A decision tree is included that is clinically focused, practical, and straightforward. The authors represent a broad range of Catholic clinical experience. Practical suggestions are offered regarding how to go about discussing this difficult subject with patients and their families. The issues of patient refusal, advance directives, and physician recusal from care are addressed. A chronological reading list on the subject of PEG tubes is provided.
https://www.cathmed.org/resources/peg/
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 01:13:34 PMQuote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 01:05:42 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 11:01:59 AMBut even if a feeding tube were somehow extraordinary means in this case, which it was not by any definition of the term used in Catholic theology
and even if it could have been ascertained that she would not have wanted to accept that extraordinary treatment, which it never was
and even if it were true that she could not eat orally, which many close to her deny
and even it were true that she had miraculously survived being unable to swallow her own saliva for 15 years
and could therefore not swallow even a tiny amount of water
This would still be a case of euthanasia.
Because whether or not any of that were true, the fact remains that she was denied even attempting ordinary means. The doctors never even tried to administer food normally to her. There was a court order in place and an armed police man on guard at all times to make sure that no one could even try to give her water.
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
I will go back and read his statements as well as his posts here. I'm still not seeing a shift, but a logical clarification given the reactions he got from others who insisted that this was a case about euthanasia.
Failure to supply someone with ordinary means of preserving life is euthanasia and that indisputably happened in this case.
QuoteI need to go back and look at all of the Church quotes provided re: ordinary and extraordinary means from both Fr Cekada and elsewhere.
Yes.
You keep repeating that
denying ordinary means would be euthanasia. But Fr Cekada didn't believe that this was ordinary means. He actually agrees with you (and others) that this would be murder if it were ordinary means. He writes to Dr Gebel (you left out this part when you quoted him earlier):
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.And this is when I start to wonder what people are up to when they argue against Fr Cekada on this. He believed this was a matter of extraordinary means, not ordinary. As such, his comments are completely valid. You don't have to agree with him, but they are valid.
Quite frankly, when reading about "grave burdens" related to extraordinary means per Catholic moral theology, I really don't see how using a feeding tube
indefinitely is NOT a grave burden...whether physically, emotionally or financially. I really think this is the issue. This wasn't a temporary use of a feeding tube. It was permanent.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 12:57:26 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 12:41:27 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 12:35:41 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 11:01:59 AMBecause whether or not any of that were true, the fact remains that she was denied even attempting ordinary means. The doctors never even tried to administer food normally to her. There was a court order in place and an armed police man on guard at all times to make sure that no one could even try to give her water.
"The failure to supply the ordinary means of preserving life is equivalent to euthanasia."
I don't know why you persist in saying such things.
Terri Schiavo could not take food or water by Ordinary means. Why do you say that her doctors didn't even try? Of course they tried.
And the armed guards were there to prevent the protesting crowds outside from attempting to storm the hospital with food and drink, as they had threatened to do.
Terri Schiavo's brain had atrophied to half its normal size. And her cerebral cortex was only capable of "reflexively regulating the bare essentials of life".
There was no possibility of a recovery. She was blind, and in a "persistent vegetative state" according the the doctors who examined her, unlike the doctor referred to by you and Bonaventure.
There was nothing Ordinary about any of this.
Wow, it's truly astonishing how you refuse to research this case at all or read any of the links provided before making statements.
There was an armed guard in the room making sure she didn't receive any water or nourishment whatsoever from her priest and family, including Holy Communion.
I have researched the case, extensively, which is why I know that your argument is based on emotion and rumour.
When will you address the point I have repeatedly made that Dr Greber never examined Terri Schiavo in person?
When will you address that fact that she could not take food and fluid orally according to the doctors who examined her? I have pointed this out repeatedly and all you do is repeat the same false claim?
You keep claiming that Terri Schiavo was capable of taking food and fluid orally when she clearly wasn't.
Why do you do this?
And why were her parents and priest trying to make her drink water when she clearly couldn't?
You could not have researched the case extensively and not known that
a)she was able to breathe normally and not by machine as you claimed
b)she was not in a coma, as you implied
c)her mouth was not kept moist, unlike what you claimed
None of my posts have been based on emotion or rumor. Besides Fr. Cekada's own criteria of principle, Church teaching, and theology books, my only other sources have been court documents and eye witness accounts.
I provided a link to a discussion where a lawyer points out that most doctor testimony accepted in a court of law is not based on physical examination of a patient.
I provided a link to a court document forbidding the administration of food and water normally. We are discussing the topic based on Church teaching, which says that ordinary means must always be at least supplied, which they were not. The claim that she could not take food and water normally was highly contested not just by her family, but by members of her medical team and a medical examination clarifying the question was requested and denied in a different ruling by the judge.
I never once, let alone repeatedly, claimed that she was certainly able to take food and water orally. I said the fact is that they were not supplied to her. Not even in the tiniest most manageable amounts.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 01:54:17 PMBut why are you so emotionally invested in denying what her doctors and the autopsy report said?
You're really going to go with, "Just trust the doctors," after the past four years?
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 02:34:34 PMYou keep repeating that denying ordinary means would be euthanasia. But Fr Cekada didn't believe that this was ordinary means. He actually agrees with you (and others) that this would be murder if it were ordinary means.
...
And this is when I start to wonder what people are up to when they argue against Fr Cekada on this. He believed this was a matter of extraordinary means, not ordinary. As such, his comments are completely valid. You don't have to agree with him, but they are valid.
Quite frankly, when reading about "grave burdens" related to extraordinary means per Catholic moral theology, I really don't see how using a feeding tube indefinitely is NOT a grave burden...whether physically, emotionally or financially. I really think this is the issue. This wasn't a temporary use of a feeding tube. It was permanent.
This certainly being a case of euthanasia was, as I stated, not in reference to the feeding tube, but to her being refused even regular food and water. Church teaching days that it must be supplied and it wasn't in any sort.
"What people are up to" when they argue against Fr. Cekada is reading the sources he himself provides, from which it is nearly impossible to conclude that a PEG feeding tube, is itself extraordinary means and it would not be wrong to remove it when already in place. This is the conclusion of the entire Catholic Church- including sedevacantists- outside of Fr. Cekada's one group, just about all prudent and conscientious men, and the entire developed world, including even North Korea.
The "burden" is in the fact that the person is severely handicapped. The feeding tube makes this burden easier, not harder.
Feeding a person by mouth, indefinitely, is much more burdensome, yet ordinary.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 04:35:51 PMThis certainly being a case of euthanasia was, as I stated, not in reference to the feeding tube, but to her being refused even regular food and water. Church teaching days that it must be supplied and it wasn't in any sort.
Why do you keep repeating the same falsehood?
Quote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 05:17:52 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 04:35:51 PMThis certainly being a case of euthanasia was, as I stated, not in reference to the feeding tube, but to her being refused even regular food and water. Church teaching days that it must be supplied and it wasn't in any sort.
Why do you keep repeating the same falsehood?
Well...maybe it wasn't supplied because they knew she was incapable of eating and drinking on her own.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 04:35:51 PMQuote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 02:34:34 PMYou keep repeating that denying ordinary means would be euthanasia. But Fr Cekada didn't believe that this was ordinary means. He actually agrees with you (and others) that this would be murder if it were ordinary means.
...
And this is when I start to wonder what people are up to when they argue against Fr Cekada on this. He believed this was a matter of extraordinary means, not ordinary. As such, his comments are completely valid. You don't have to agree with him, but they are valid.
Quite frankly, when reading about "grave burdens" related to extraordinary means per Catholic moral theology, I really don't see how using a feeding tube indefinitely is NOT a grave burden...whether physically, emotionally or financially. I really think this is the issue. This wasn't a temporary use of a feeding tube. It was permanent.
This certainly being a case of euthanasia was, as I stated, not in reference to the feeding tube, but to her being refused even regular food and water. Church teaching days that it must be supplied and it wasn't in any sort.
"What people are up to" when they argue against Fr. Cekada is reading the sources he himself provides, from which it is nearly impossible to conclude that a PEG feeding tube, is itself extraordinary means and it would not be wrong to remove it when already in place. This is the conclusion of the entire Catholic Church- including sedevacantists- outside of Fr. Cekada's one group, just about all prudent and conscientious men, and the entire developed world, including even North Korea.
The "burden" is in the fact that the person is severely handicapped. The feeding tube makes this burden easier, not harder.
Feeding a person by mouth, indefinitely, is much more burdensome, yet ordinary.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 04:35:51 PMQuote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 02:34:34 PMYou keep repeating that denying ordinary means would be euthanasia. But Fr Cekada didn't believe that this was ordinary means. He actually agrees with you (and others) that this would be murder if it were ordinary means.
...
And this is when I start to wonder what people are up to when they argue against Fr Cekada on this. He believed this was a matter of extraordinary means, not ordinary. As such, his comments are completely valid. You don't have to agree with him, but they are valid.
Quite frankly, when reading about "grave burdens" related to extraordinary means per Catholic moral theology, I really don't see how using a feeding tube indefinitely is NOT a grave burden...whether physically, emotionally or financially. I really think this is the issue. This wasn't a temporary use of a feeding tube. It was permanent.
This certainly being a case of euthanasia was, as I stated, not in reference to the feeding tube, but to her being refused even regular food and water. Church teaching days that it must be supplied and it wasn't in any sort.
"What people are up to" when they argue against Fr. Cekada is reading the sources he himself provides, from which it is nearly impossible to conclude that a PEG feeding tube, is itself extraordinary means and it would not be wrong to remove it when already in place. This is the conclusion of the entire Catholic Church- including sedevacantists- outside of Fr. Cekada's one group, just about all prudent and conscientious men, and the entire developed world, including even North Korea.
The "burden" is in the fact that the person is severely handicapped. The feeding tube makes this burden easier, not harder.
Feeding a person by mouth, indefinitely, is much more burdensome, yet ordinary.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 04:35:51 PMQuote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 02:34:34 PMYou keep repeating that denying ordinary means would be euthanasia. But Fr Cekada didn't believe that this was ordinary means. He actually agrees with you (and others) that this would be murder if it were ordinary means.
...
And this is when I start to wonder what people are up to when they argue against Fr Cekada on this. He believed this was a matter of extraordinary means, not ordinary. As such, his comments are completely valid. You don't have to agree with him, but they are valid.
Quite frankly, when reading about "grave burdens" related to extraordinary means per Catholic moral theology, I really don't see how using a feeding tube indefinitely is NOT a grave burden...whether physically, emotionally or financially. I really think this is the issue. This wasn't a temporary use of a feeding tube. It was permanent.
This certainly being a case of euthanasia was, as I stated, not in reference to the feeding tube, but to her being refused even regular food and water. Church teaching days that it must be supplied and it wasn't in any sort.
"What people are up to" when they argue against Fr. Cekada is reading the sources he himself provides, from which it is nearly impossible to conclude that a PEG feeding tube, is itself extraordinary means and it would not be wrong to remove it when already in place. This is the conclusion of the entire Catholic Church- including sedevacantists- outside of Fr. Cekada's one group, just about all prudent and conscientious men, and the entire developed world, including even North Korea.
The "burden" is in the fact that the person is severely handicapped. The feeding tube makes this burden easier, not harder.
Feeding a person by mouth, indefinitely, is much more burdensome, yet ordinary.
If it is "nearly impossible" to conclude extraordinary means, then how do you explain why Father Cekada came to that conclusion? He certainly didn't make a lot of friends by doing so. In fact oftentimes his opinion on this is held against him to this day. I witnessed it here on the "SV and Akita" thread. He may have been wrong, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he sincerely and objectively weighed the teachings and evidence to come to what he believed to be the correct traditional Catholic teaching. Even if everyone else concluded differently. Again, I know there is so much more to read about this case, but I remain unconvinced it's an open and shut case ofmurder.
Quote from: ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez on April 19, 2024, 04:08:26 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 01:54:17 PMBut why are you so emotionally invested in denying what her doctors and the autopsy report said?
You're really going to go with, "Just trust the doctors," after the past four years?
And yet Dr Gebel gets a pass?
Quote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 04:07:46 PMYou could not have researched the case extensively and not known that
a)she was able to breathe normally and not by machine as you claimed
b)she was not in a coma, as you implied
c)her mouth was not kept moist, unlike what you claimed
None of my posts have been based on emotion or rumor. Besides Fr. Cekada's own criteria of principle, Church teaching, and theology books, my only other sources have been court documents and eye witness accounts.
I provided a link to a discussion where a lawyer points out that most doctor testimony accepted in a court of law is not based on physical examination of a patient.
I provided a link to a court document forbidding the administration of food and water normally. We are discussing the topic based on Church teaching, which says that ordinary means must always be at least supplied, which they were not. The claim that she could not take food and water normally was highly contested not just by her family, but by members of her medical team and a medical examination clarifying the question was requested and denied in a different ruling by the judge.
I never once, let alone repeatedly, claimed that she was certainly able to take food and water orally. I said the fact is that they were not supplied to her. Not even in the tiniest most manageable amounts.
Alright, she could breathe without the aid of a machine. And she was diagnosed as being in a Persistent Vegetative State, as the autopsy report states.
She could not take food or fluid orally and needed a feeding tube. You keep saying that food and water was not supplied to her. But why would they be if she couldn't eat or drink and had to be fed through a tube?
This is the point in your argument that I don't understand. You say you never said that she was "certainly able to take food and water orally". And then you say she was denied food and water, even the "tiniest most manageable amounts".
But if you can't say with certainty that she could take food and water orally, how do you define the amount of food and water you think she could take? She could manage ice chips and some Jello - for 15 years. But if these weren't to keep her mouth moist, then it seems a bit of a stretch to refer to these as food and water.
You say that the claim she couldn't take food and water orally was contested. Then how much food and water could she take and why did removing the tube end her life?
I've read many claims about this case and I doubt we'll ever agree. But the claims of murder, execution and euthanasia are ridiculous and evidence enough of emotionalism.
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 06:52:27 PMQuote from: ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez on April 19, 2024, 04:08:26 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 01:54:17 PMBut why are you so emotionally invested in denying what her doctors and the autopsy report said?
You're really going to go with, "Just trust the doctors," after the past four years?
And yet Dr Gebel gets a pass?
He's a traditional Catholic and a massgoer of SGG.
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 06:28:07 PMWell...maybe it wasn't supplied because they knew she was incapable of eating and drinking on her own.
Thank you for admitting what is public record in court documents and all testimony from both sides of the discussion.
She was not supplied any ordinary means, including the tiniest amount of water for 13 days. Nobody but one person in the entire world is denying this, not even her husband.
This is not a false claim.
This would be like not just turning off someone's oxygen, but then covering their head with a pillow and saying, "This isn't euthanasia, because the doctors say she can't breathe on her own."
Except the doctors are often wrong in these pronouncements when it's actually tested, like they were with Ann Quinlan.
And as even awkward customer admitted earlier, keeping someone's mouth moist is "essential" even when they cannot eat or drink. But this ordinary means of preserving health was denied too.
Every "life-prolonging measure" was denied.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 07:25:41 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 04:07:46 PMYou could not have researched the case extensively and not known that
a)she was able to breathe normally and not by machine as you claimed
b)she was not in a coma, as you implied
c)her mouth was not kept moist, unlike what you claimed
None of my posts have been based on emotion or rumor. Besides Fr. Cekada's own criteria of principle, Church teaching, and theology books, my only other sources have been court documents and eye witness accounts.
I provided a link to a discussion where a lawyer points out that most doctor testimony accepted in a court of law is not based on physical examination of a patient.
I provided a link to a court document forbidding the administration of food and water normally. We are discussing the topic based on Church teaching, which says that ordinary means must always be at least supplied, which they were not. The claim that she could not take food and water normally was highly contested not just by her family, but by members of her medical team and a medical examination clarifying the question was requested and denied in a different ruling by the judge.
I never once, let alone repeatedly, claimed that she was certainly able to take food and water orally. I said the fact is that they were not supplied to her. Not even in the tiniest most manageable amounts.
Alright, she could breathe without the aid of a machine. And she was diagnosed as being in a Persistent Vegetative State, as the autopsy report states.
She could not take food or fluid orally and needed a feeding tube. You keep saying that food and water was not supplied to her. But why would they be if she couldn't eat or drink and had to be fed through a tube?
This is the point in your argument that I don't understand. You say you never said that she was "certainly able to take food and water orally". And then you say she was denied food and water, even the "tiniest most manageable amounts".
But if you can't say with certainty that she could take food and water orally, how do you define the amount of food and water you think she could take? She could manage ice chips and some Jello - for 15 years. But if these weren't to keep her mouth moist, then it seems a bit of a stretch to refer to these as food and water.
You say that the claim she couldn't take food and water orally was contested. Then how much food and water could she take and why did removing the tube end her life?
I've read many claims about this case and I doubt we'll ever agree. But the claims of murder, execution and euthanasia are ridiculous and evidence enough of emotionalism.
You still haven't researched enough to know that the reference to ice chips in the debate was to the fact that even these were forbidden to be placed on her lips to alleviate some of her suffering as she slowly dehydrated and starved.
So we'll never know if she could have taken even that much water.
Fr. Cekada claimed her husband had the authority to do this.
Which no Catholic principle, teaching, or theology book has ever taught.
We will certainly never agree if you think it is "ridiculous" and "emotional" to even claim she was euthanized. It's the conclusion that, as far as I know, every single traditional Catholic priest in the world came to besides three.
And two of those did not defend the actions denying her even a tiny amount of water at the end of her life.
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 06:44:29 PMIf it is "nearly impossible" to conclude extraordinary means, then how do you explain why Father Cekada came to that conclusion?
To quote Fr. Jenkins, "It is amazing – literally incredible".
I certainly do not try to explain it.
Quote from: Bonaventure on April 19, 2024, 08:49:05 PMQuote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 06:52:27 PMQuote from: ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez on April 19, 2024, 04:08:26 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 01:54:17 PMBut why are you so emotionally invested in denying what her doctors and the autopsy report said?
You're really going to go with, "Just trust the doctors," after the past four years?
And yet Dr Gebel gets a pass?
He's a traditional Catholic and a massgoer of SGG.
Oh good. Perhaps you can help me understand the argument being put forward by queen.saints because I'm baffled by it.
Terri Schiavo could not take food and water by Ordinary means which is why she needed a feeding tube.
Queen.saints claims that Terri Schiavo was euthanised because she wasn't given food and water after her feeding tube was removed.
But she couldn't eat food or drink water which is why she needed a feeding tube in the first place.
Can you explain queen.saints logic. Because I can't.
PS Dr Geber never examined Terri Schiavo in person.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 20, 2024, 12:10:21 AMQuote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 07:25:41 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 19, 2024, 04:07:46 PMYou could not have researched the case extensively and not known that
a)she was able to breathe normally and not by machine as you claimed
b)she was not in a coma, as you implied
c)her mouth was not kept moist, unlike what you claimed
None of my posts have been based on emotion or rumor. Besides Fr. Cekada's own criteria of principle, Church teaching, and theology books, my only other sources have been court documents and eye witness accounts.
I provided a link to a discussion where a lawyer points out that most doctor testimony accepted in a court of law is not based on physical examination of a patient.
I provided a link to a court document forbidding the administration of food and water normally. We are discussing the topic based on Church teaching, which says that ordinary means must always be at least supplied, which they were not. The claim that she could not take food and water normally was highly contested not just by her family, but by members of her medical team and a medical examination clarifying the question was requested and denied in a different ruling by the judge.
I never once, let alone repeatedly, claimed that she was certainly able to take food and water orally. I said the fact is that they were not supplied to her. Not even in the tiniest most manageable amounts.
Alright, she could breathe without the aid of a machine. And she was diagnosed as being in a Persistent Vegetative State, as the autopsy report states.
She could not take food or fluid orally and needed a feeding tube. You keep saying that food and water was not supplied to her. But why would they be if she couldn't eat or drink and had to be fed through a tube?
This is the point in your argument that I don't understand. You say you never said that she was "certainly able to take food and water orally". And then you say she was denied food and water, even the "tiniest most manageable amounts".
But if you can't say with certainty that she could take food and water orally, how do you define the amount of food and water you think she could take? She could manage ice chips and some Jello - for 15 years. But if these weren't to keep her mouth moist, then it seems a bit of a stretch to refer to these as food and water.
You say that the claim she couldn't take food and water orally was contested. Then how much food and water could she take and why did removing the tube end her life?
I've read many claims about this case and I doubt we'll ever agree. But the claims of murder, execution and euthanasia are ridiculous and evidence enough of emotionalism.
You still haven't researched enough to know that the reference to ice chips in the debate was to the fact that even these were forbidden to be placed on her lips to alleviate some of her suffering as she slowly dehydrated and starved.
So we'll never know if she could have taken even that much water.
Fr. Cekada claimed her husband had the authority to do this.
Which no Catholic principle, teaching, or theology book has ever taught.
We will certainly never agree if you think it is "ridiculous" and "emotional" to even claim she was euthanized. It's the conclusion that, as far as I know, every single traditional Catholic priest in the world came to besides three.
And two of those did not defend the actions denying her even a tiny amount of water at the end of her life.
Have you read the autopsy report?
I'm still trying to understand your logic and have asked Bonaventure to help explain it.
Here's the problem I have - again.
You keep saying that Terri Schiavo was euthanised because she was denied food and water after her feeding tube was removed.
But she couldn't drink water or eat food, which is why she was on a feeding tube in the first place.
Please explain .....
Also, a human being can't survive much longer than three days without water. Please explain how Terri Schiavo survived 13 days without water as you claim above.
Perhaps there's no logic.
The case against Fr Cekada's position, and mine, seems to be that Terri Schiavo was murdered because she wasn't given food and water which she was incapable of eating and drinking anyway.
An argument like that is impossible to counter. She was killed because she wasn't given the opportunity to do something she couldn't do.
What can anyone say?
Quote from: awkward customer on April 20, 2024, 04:28:37 AMPerhaps there's no logic.
The case against Fr Cekada's position, and mine, seems to be that Terri Schiavo was murdered because she wasn't given food and water which she was incapable of eating and drinking anyway.
An argument like that is impossible to counter. She was killed because she wasn't given the opportunity to do something she couldn't do.
What can anyone say?
I don't see any logic in it either.
Perhaps no one can explain it just as no one can explain why Fr Cekada could
possibly come to the conclusion that this was a matter of extraordinary means and did not result in murder. At least queens doesn't demonize him nor those who are open to his position. I can respect that.
Bottom line: No one on either side is going to change their minds on this topic at this point in the game. Especially those who are emotionally invested and 100% sure she was murdered.
Quote from: Baylee on April 20, 2024, 04:52:23 AMPerhaps no one can explain it just as no one can explain why Fr Cekada could possibly come to the conclusion that this was a matter of extraordinary means and did not result in murder.
Exactly. The original question of whether or not feeding tubes constitute Ordinary or Extraordinary treatment has been lost in this miasma of illogicality.
But what about the false compassion? I firmly believe that keeping someone with no hope of recovery on a feeding tube for 15 years constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, especially if that person suffered from bulimia.
Perhaps people should read the autopsy report you posted earlier. Terri Schiavo's brain had atrophied to being one half of its normal size and was capable of only "reflexively" maintaining bodily functions. She was blind and incapable of communicating. She could not eat or drink by Ordinary means, hence the feeding tube. She was in a Persistent Vegetative State.
Terri Schiavo had no hope of recovery. Where's the compassion in keeping a body functioning at such a level - for 15 years - a level which would remain permanently and which depended on feeding tubes while she lay immobile on a hospital bed, blind and unable to communicate?
Queen.saints blithely states that feeding tubes don't cause distress and are less burdensome than feeding by Ordinary means. But less burdensome to who? I'm detecting no effort whatsoever to understand the reality of being in Terri Schiavo's position.
Surely, if a body cannot take food and water for a prolonged period - 15 years - and has no hope of recovery, then that body is signalling to the world that life is over, that it's time to go. It's understandably that her parents did not want to admit this but why make things worse by jumping on the Euthanasia bandwagon.
I'm wondering where if she was even truly alive for those 15 years. When does the soul leave the body? When the body has decided it can no longer continue and is only capable of being kept in a reflexively maintained state due to the intervention of a machine, in this case the feeding tube and apparatus?
Emotionalism and illogicality always lead to bad outcomes and rarely produce true compassion. At least Fr Cekada had some idea of the reality of being in Terri Schiavo's situation as he repeatedly draws attention to this.
But the whole question hinges on whether feeding tubes are Ordinary or Extraordinary treatment.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 20, 2024, 04:22:10 AMPlease explain .....
Also, a human being can't survive much longer than three days without water. Please explain how Terri Schiavo survived 13 days without water as you claim above.
Good question. Almost every article I googled says that we cannot live without water for more than 3-4 days. One article stated maybe a week. This makes me wonder whether she was given fluids intraveneously.
Here we are at reply #66 and still seeing false speculations a brief reading of the posts and links provided or even Wikipedia would have contradicted.
"What can anyone say?" indeed.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 20, 2024, 06:05:39 AMHere we are at reply #66 and still seeing false speculations a brief reading of the posts and links provided or even Wikipedia would have contradicted.
"What can anyone say?" indeed.
Queen, as I said above, I don't think anyone is going change anyone's opinion on this case (although I still remain uncommitted one way or the other and believe that good people can come to different conclusions).
However, I think asking how she was able to live
13 days without water is certainly a valid one. Isn't that at least odd?
Healthy people can only live 3-4 days without water and Terri lived 13??If you answered that questions elsewhere (or it's explained in one of the links) can you direct me to that? If it's not been answered, then isn't that a question that should be at least considered? Wouldn't it be valid speculation to question whether it's true that she was not given some sort of hydration before her final death? She may not have had it via natural means, but it certainly is possible that she was given it via IV.
For me, if this has not been answered, it certainly gives me pause, and I don't understand why someone should think that it should not.
Here are links to doctors and nurses who personally examined or cared for the patient testifying that she could swallow
https://terrischiavoorg.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/hammesfahr.pdf
https://terrischiavoorg.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/maxfield.pdf
https://terrischiavoorg.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/avery-affidavit.pdf
https://terrischiavoorg.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/young.pdf
https://terrischiavoorg.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/affidavit-c-iyer-082903.pdf
https://terrischiavoorg.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/affidavit-c-johnson-082803.pdf
https://terrischiavoorg.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/affidavit-h-law-083003.pdf
Here is a link to the appeal by the Guardian Ad Litem assigned to the patient by the court advising new swallowing tests, since even the most recent test the judge used in his ruling had been conducted in 1993, 10 years prior to the initial ruling.
https://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/WolfsonReport.pdf
New tests were forbidden by the judge.
Here is a link to his rulings dismissing the petition for new tests and his final refusal of normal administration of food and water based on what was at that time a 12 year old test.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050321013532/http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder0300.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20050529141133/http://www.terrisfight.org/documents/022805EmMotionNaturalFeeding.pdf
Quote from: Baylee on April 20, 2024, 06:40:35 AMQuote from: queen.saints on April 20, 2024, 06:05:39 AMHere we are at reply #66 and still seeing false speculations a brief reading of the posts and links provided or even Wikipedia would have contradicted.
"What can anyone say?" indeed.
Queen, as I said above, I don't think anyone is going change anyone's opinion on this case (although I still remain uncommitted one way or the other and believe that good people can come to different conclusions).
However, I think asking how she was able to live 13 days without water is certainly a valid one. Isn't that at least odd? Healthy people can only live 3-4 days without water and Terri lived 13??
If you answered that questions elsewhere (or it's explained in one of the links) can you direct me to that? If it's not been answered, then isn't that a question that should be at least considered? Wouldn't it be valid speculation to question whether it's true that she was not given some sort of hydration before her final death? She may not have had it via natural means, but it certainly is possible that she was given it via IV.
For me, if this has not been answered, it certainly gives me pause, and I don't understand why someone should think that it should not.
Yes, it was horrific and stunning that she was able to survive that long with no water, but it's not a disputed fact of the case.
Euthanasia advocates and her husband claimed that it was a beautiful, peaceful process and her priest said it was the worst thing he had ever witnessed.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 20, 2024, 08:02:42 AMQuote from: Baylee on April 20, 2024, 06:40:35 AMQuote from: queen.saints on April 20, 2024, 06:05:39 AMHere we are at reply #66 and still seeing false speculations a brief reading of the posts and links provided or even Wikipedia would have contradicted.
"What can anyone say?" indeed.
Queen, as I said above, I don't think anyone is going change anyone's opinion on this case (although I still remain uncommitted one way or the other and believe that good people can come to different conclusions).
However, I think asking how she was able to live 13 days without water is certainly a valid one. Isn't that at least odd? Healthy people can only live 3-4 days without water and Terri lived 13??
If you answered that questions elsewhere (or it's explained in one of the links) can you direct me to that? If it's not been answered, then isn't that a question that should be at least considered? Wouldn't it be valid speculation to question whether it's true that she was not given some sort of hydration before her final death? She may not have had it via natural means, but it certainly is possible that she was given it via IV.
For me, if this has not been answered, it certainly gives me pause, and I don't understand why someone should think that it should not.
Yes, it was horrific and stunning that she was able to survive that long with no water, but it's not a disputed fact of the case.
Euthanasia advocates and her husband claimed that it was a beautiful, peaceful process and her priest said it was the worst thing he had ever witnessed.
You say stunning, but my common sense says, "13 days? That's hard to believe".
Thank you for the links. I will look them over to see if they address my question regarding the use of other forms of hydration vs "normal means". If other forms of hydration were used (even though normal means were not allowed), then that would mean certain ordinary means were still used in her final days.
Quote from: Baylee on April 19, 2024, 06:52:27 PMQuote from: ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez on April 19, 2024, 04:08:26 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 19, 2024, 01:54:17 PMBut why are you so emotionally invested in denying what her doctors and the autopsy report said?
You're really going to go with, "Just trust the doctors," after the past four years?
And yet Dr Gebel gets a pass?
I thought he was a fine paleontologist.
This is from the website of Terri's family:
The Schindlers' battle for Terri's life began in 1998 when her husband petitioned the court to remove her nutrition and hydration, which would result in her death. They endured court hearings, legislative battles, and three separate attempts to withdraw Terri's food and fluids over the course of five years. Sadly, Terri's courageous struggle, and her family's tireless efforts to protect her, ended on March 31, 2005, when she succumbed to dehydration and starvation at the hands of a faithless judicial system and at the request of her husband.
Their valiant struggle to save the life of their daughter was played out in primetime and splashed across newspapers and magazine covers around the globe. During this time, Terri's parents taught us what it means to love unconditionally and to defend life without reserve.
for links see
https://terrischiavo.org/story/terris-family/
Who was Terri?
What was Terri's wish?
Who was Terri's family?
What was the timeline of Terri's fight?
What were the professionals' opinions?
What was the public's opinion?
What are some frequently asked questions?
From link above:
On February 25, 1990, at the age of 26, Terri Schiavo collapsed, for still unknown reasons, while home alone with Michael Schiavo. Terri had no written directive. Schiavo made no mention that Terri had any type of verbal living will.
In November 1992, Michael Schiavo initiated a medical malpractice suit against Terri's physicians, a general practitioner and a gynecologist, claiming that she may have suffered from an eating disorder which they failed to detect. At trial, the Chief of Rehabilitation from Bayfront Medical Center and a second rehabilitation specialist both testified that Terri could expect a normal life span and would require extensive care throughout her life. Michael Schiavo recited his wedding vows to the jury and asked for upwards of 20 million dollars so that he could "bring Terri home" and provide her with the proper lifelong rehabilitation and therapy she was going to need because of her disability. Based on that and other evidence, the jury awarded Michael Schiavo $600,000 for loss of spousal consortium and over $1.5 million to Terri. Of this, $780,000 was placed in trust to provide for Terri's future healthcare and therapeutic needs.
On February 14, 1993, Michael Schiavo and Terri's parents had a disagreement over the course of her care and the use of her trust to provide therapy. Terri's parents urged Michael Schiavo to begin rehabilitation and therapy for Terri once again. He declined. Schiavo discontinued any contact with Terri's family and took steps to deny their access to her.
In the spring of that year, subsequent to the split between Michael Schiavo and Terri's family, Schiavo places placed a DNR order in Terri's medical records, and instructed nursing home not to reveal any medical information regarding Terri to her family.
That summer, Michael Schiavo instructed Terri's physician not to treat her UT infection which would ultimately lead to her death by sepsis. Fortunately, the Nursing home intervened, informing Schiavo that Florida Statutes do not permit the withholding of such medical treatment.
In November 1993, Michael Schiavo is was deposed and testified that he wanted the antibiotics withheld in the hopes that Terri would die stating that, "It's what I think Terri would want", and "In my own feelings, if Terri were to wake up and see herself the way she is now, she wouldn't even want to live like that." Schiavo never mentioned that it was "Terri's" wish to die, only his wish.
In 1994, Michael Schiavo took up residence and became engaged to Jodi Centzone. He refused to dissolve his marriage to Terri, and the couple eventually had three children.
In 1995, Michael Schiavo sought out the services of attorney George Felos, a right-to-die litigator. Attorney Felos would later petition the court for his fees to be paid for by Terri's trust.
In July of 1997, Michael mother, Clare Schiavo, passed away. While making no mention of Terri, Schiavo publicly announced – in mother's obituary – his intentions to marry Jodi Centonze, while still being married to Terri.
Note: During the 2000 trial to determine Terri's fate, Michael Schiavo testified that it was only AFTER his mother's death that he decided to remove Terri's feeding tube. This contradicted the fact that Schiavo and his attorney had already begun the procedures to remove Terri's feeding tube several months prior to Schiavo's mother passing away.
In May of 1998, Felos filed Petition to Withdraw Life Support, based on Michael Schiavo's claim that Terri had a verbal living will. The court appointed a Guardian ad Litem (GAL) to investigate the merits of this petition. During investigation, Guardian ad Litem asked Schiavo if he knew of anyone else having knowledge of Terri's alleged wish. Schiavo tells GAL ... "No".
The final report of the Guardian ad Litem to the court was that the petition should be denied based on conflicts of interest by Michael Schiavo. Report cited the number of years it took for Schiavo to recall Terri's alleged wish, and the money Schiavo would stand to inherit, which was upwards of $800,000.00. Attorney Felos objected on claims of bias and the court dismissed the Guardian ad Litem without ever appointing a successor.
In the spring of 1999, Florida Law was changed to recognize feeding tubes as "medical treatment" (artificial life support). Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos was directly involved in effort to change law.
That same year, during Michael Schaivo's deposition in preparation for upcoming trial, attorney Felos asks asked Schiavo if there was anyone who would corroborate his claim regarding Terri's "wishes". Despite previously saying he knew of no one, Schiavo then identified his brother, Scott Schiavo and sister-in-law, Joan Schiavo.
In January of 2000, the Petition to Withdraw Life Support was heard by Judge George W. Greer in Pinellas-Pasco's Sixth Judicial Circuit. As support for his petition, Michael Schiavo testified that Terri told him in the mid-1980s that she would not want life support after the couple had watched a movie depicting a patient on a ventilator. Schiavo's brother and sister-in-law also testified that Terri had made statements to them regarding mechanical life support. Judge Greer dismissed testimony of Terri's parents, siblings, Terri's life-long girlfriend and closest friend in Florida, all testifying that Terri never made any statements regarding situations if she were to become disabled. Greer found Schiavo and his family's testimony to be clear and convincing evidence and ordered that Terri's feeding tube be removed.
In April of 2001, Cindy Brashers (Shook) – a previous girlfriend of Schiavo's -told Terri's father, and brother in a phone conversation that Michael Schiavo was lying about Terri's wishes and that he told Shook back in 1991 when they were dating that, "He had no idea what Terri's wishes were."
That same year, Trudy Capone (Trudy Capone and Schiavo dated just prior to his relationship with Jodi Centonze) submitted an affidavit repeating Shook's claim that Michael Schiavo was lying and did not know Terri's wishes.
March 31, 2005, Terri died of marked dehydration after almost 14 days of being denied food and water based on Judge Greer's decision that it was Terri's wish to die.
also from her family's website:
Was Terri dying?
No. Terri suffered from no terminal disease or condition and her cognitive disability did not jeopardize her life in any way. She was simply a physically healthy woman with a profound brain injury.
Was Terri brain dead or in a coma?
No. Brain death is not a catch phrase used to describe a person's condition but rather an authentic medical diagnosis determined when respiration and other reflexes are absent. Coma is a profound or deep state of unconsciousness. An individual in a state of coma is alive but unable to move or respond to his or her environment. Terri was neither brain dead, nor was she in a coma.
Were there any machines keeping Terri alive?
Absolutely not. Contrary to media reports, Terri did not require life sustaining equipment such as a ventilator. The only thing keeping Terri alive was the same thing that keeps every one of us alive – food and water.
Was this an "end-of-life" issue?
No. Terri's case should not be confused with legitimate end-of-life cases in which patients are terminally ill and imminently dying. As already stated, Terri was neither ill nor dying. Terri's story is often described as an "end of life" issue—but her story only became truly "end of life" the moment that her husband Michael sought to deliberately end Terri's life.
Was Terri in a "Persistent Vegetative State"?
No. Despite Judge Greer's ruling, and in keeping with the 40 medical affidavits submitted to the court, all evidence proves that Terri was not in a PVS. Terri's behavior and ability to interact with her surroundings did not meet the medical or statutory definition of persistent vegetative state.
Did the autopsy prove that Terri was in a "Persistent Vegetative State"?
No. The autopsy was unable to determine whether or not Terri was actually in a persistent vegetative state. In fact, on three separate occasions, the report stated that an autopsy is unable to determine if a person is in a persistent vegetative state because the person must be alive in order to make such a diagnosis. The autopsy did prove that, prior to Terri's death, she was physically healthy and would have lived a long life had she not been dehydrated over a period of two weeks.
Were Terri's parents able to make any decisions regarding her medical care or well being?
No. From 1993 until her death, Terri's parents were not allowed to participate in her care. As guardian, Michael Schiavo had 100% control over Terri. He refused to allow her parents to help their daughter in any way. In fact, during the final weeks of her life, Terri's parents were informed that if they so much as tried to give her a drop of water, or provide comfort care in any way, they would be arrested by the armed police officers who guarded her room 24 hours a day.
Was Terri receiving any rehabilitation in the years prior to her death?
No. Terri was essentially warehoused and abandoned from 1992, when Michael Schiavo ordered all rehabilitation and therapy stopped, until her dehydration death in March of 2005. This was in spite of the fact that countless doctors said Terri's condition could have improved with continued rehabilitation and therapy – and that her condition had been improving while she was receiving therapy.
Why did the court allow Terri to be killed?
Permission to starve and dehydrate Terri to death was granted based on hearsay evidence that surfaced almost eight years after her collapse, alleging that she wanted to die.
Did Terri have an advance directive?
No. Terri had no written advance directive that indicated her wishes. The court allowed her to be killed based only upon hearsay evidence provided by Michael Schiavo, his brother and his sister-in-law – ignoring testimony by Terri's biological family and lifelong friends to the contrary.
Was there money involved?
Yes. A trust fund of nearly $800,000 was established and earmarked for Terri's rehabilitation and therapy, with Michael as the inheritor in the case of Terri's death. Tragically, the bulk of this money was instead used to pay Michael Schiavo's attorney fees in his quest to end her life.
Did the court recognize the money Michael Schiavo stood to inherit as a conflict of interest?
No. In fact the court failed to acknowledge that not only was Schiavo's monetary interest a conflict, but that he had moved on with his life, was engaged to be married to another woman, and already had children with the other woman. In short, his role as guardian was rife with conflicts of interest.
Did Terri have her own attorney?
No, she did not. In fact, the judge in this case defaulted as her guardian/attorney.
National outlets derided the Schindlers and attacked the "radical, antiabortion, right-to-life Christian right" for casting doubt on medical experts who wrote Terri off as hopeless and falsely mischaracterized her as "brain-dead" or on "life support."
Here are the facts: Terri was on a feeding tube. A feeding tube is not a ventilator. Terri was breathing just fine on her own. She was capable of saying "Mommy" and "Help me." And as many of her medical caretakers and parents have argued, if given proper rehabilitation, Terri could learn to chew and swallow on her own as well. She was disabled, not brain-dead.
And that perturbed Michael Schiavo. Registered nurse Carla Sauer Iyer, who worked at the Palm Garden of Largo Convalescent Center in Largo, Florida, while Terri Schiavo was a patient there, testified in a sworn affidavit: "Throughout my time at Palm Gardens, Michael Schiavo was focused on Terri's death. Michael would say 'When is she going to die?' 'Has she died yet?' and 'When is that b—- gonna die?'"
When Terri's 39-page autopsy report was released a few months after her state-ordained murder, gloating propagandists concluded that it exonerated Michael Schiavo of allegations of abuse. "No trauma before Schiavo collapse," a typical headline blared. But on page four of the medical examiner's summary, what the report actually noted with regard to possible strangulation was this: "Autopsy examination of her neck structures 15 years after her initial collapse did not detect any signs of remote trauma, but, with such a delay, the exam was unlikely to show any residual neck findings." Indeed, the autopsy report refuted Michael Schiavo's widely disseminated claims in the media that she had an eating disorder or had suffered myocardial infarction. But if mentioned at all, news reports downplayed and buried those astonishing revelations (revelations which bore directly on Schiavo's credibility regarding his claim that Terri would have wanted to die).
With regard to Terri's alleged persistent vegetative state, most news articles inaccurately portrayed the report as supporting that diagnosis. But "(i)t's always seemed to us that PVS isn't really a diagnosis; it's a value judgment masquerading as a diagnosis," Stephen Drake, research analyst for the disability rights group Not Dead Yet, commented. "When it comes to the hard science, no qualified pathologist went on the record saying she couldn't think or couldn't experience her own death through dehydration."
Diane Coleman, president and founder of Not Dead Yet, agreed. "The core issues remain the same. Protection of the life and dignity of people under guardianship, and a high standard of proof in removing food and water from a person who cannot express their own wishes. These are issues of great concern to the disability community—evidenced by the 26 national disability groups that spoke out in favor of saving Terri Schiavo's life over the past few years."
"The sooner we realize ... that we are battling a systemic, radical, anti-life, anti-Christian value-system, the more we will understand it is now our urgent duty to defend the medically weak. If we don't protect them now, it will be impossible to protect our own families if and when the time comes to do so," Bobby Schindler warned this week. Terri's murder at the hands of a cabal of liars and grifters is more relevant than ever as Big Pharma, Big Government, Big Tech and Big Media elites conspire to undermine medical autonomy in the age of COVID-19.
https://intellectualtakeout.org/2022/03/never-forgotten-the-lies-about-terri-schiavo/
COPYRIGHT 2022 CREATORS.COM
And here's an interview with Michael Schiavo from 2006 in which he tells his side of the story.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna12053746
QuoteOne year ago, the Florida supreme court rejected a last minute appeal from Terri Schiavo's parents to have her feeding tube reinserted. Two more appeals were rejected. And finally on March 31, a year ago this Friday, Terri Schiavo died with only her husband by her side.
Her case had spent eight years, 40 different court cases and the intervention of Florida's governor, members of Congress, even the president. The unexpected commemoration, the almost reclusive husband becomes a political activist and an author. Michael Schiavo's book, "Terri: The Truth" reached stores on Monday. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, released they're own book, 'A Life that Matters' on Tuesday.
They still insist she was not profoundly brain damaged when she died, they disagree with autopsy results that showed her clearly blind with a brain that was profoundly atrophied.
In his first cable news interview, Michael Schiavo joined Keith Olbermann for conversation, much of it painful, some of it political, all of it personal. They will doubtless spark reaction and criticism. That criticism must doubtless begin with those other authors, his former in-laws. And what he thought of them.
KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST, 'COUNTDOWN': The people who opposed your position on this clearly politicized Terri's life and Terri's death. Do they not now have an opportunity to come back and say ah ha, now Michael Schiavo is also politicizing her life and her death?
MICHAEL SCHIAVO, DIRECTOR, TERRIPAC.ORG: I don't think I am out there to politicize, I'm out there to hold these people accountable.
These people should not have done what they had done. Would you—I mean, any American, you look at the polls, 80 percent, 87 percent of the people disagreed with what these politicians did. They walked into somebody's personal lives and took over.
Then you have Tom DeLay making the same decision for his father. I'm not understanding that point. You know, two weeks prior to Terri dying or the feeding tube even being removed, they never even knew who Terri Schiavo was.
OLBERMANN: Was that the breaking point on this for you? I think for a lot of outside observers, myself included, the moment that this seemed to leave the world of ordinary politics, or even of ordinary rationality was the moment when senator after senator and congressman after congressman got up on television, on CSPAN, on the networks in front of the nation and were doing the traditional hand ringing at them telling their interpretations of your story and your wife's story. And very few of them knew how to pronounce your last name. Her last name. Was that it for you?
SCHIAVO: You know, when this is happening, my major concern was Terri. It did make me angry hearing these people talk about my personal life when they didn't even know us. They didn't—as you say, they didn't even know how to say my name.
I invited Governor Bush, I invited President Bush to come see Terri. Come talk with me, come hear our side. They never showed up. Governor Bush was 20 minutes away from Terri on a certain day and never stopped by to see her. We tried to get in touch with them, nobody ever wanted to listen to our side. So, now it's my turn to start speaking out.
OLBERMANN: Do you think that some of the politicians were sincere, but mistaken as opposed to merely trying to make an opportunity for themselves out of this or make an opportunity for certain aspect of the political spectrum? Was there anybody in this who was just sincerely mistaken?
SCHIAVO: I don't think anybody was sincerely mistaken. I think Bill Frist, if you look at him now, I think he is trying to back track and use the Terri Schiavo case to win more votes, because he knows he was wrong.
He should have never opened his mouth. He diagnosed—he's a doctor. He diagnosed a patient from watching an hour's worth of tape. But the he says he does it. He didn't do that. It's not true.
Look at Tom DeLay. He used Terri to hide behind his own problems. He used Terri as a front.
OLBERMANN: And for her parents, for the Schindlers, was it wishful thinking? Or what happened with their approach in those final days and weeks?
SCHIAVO: I think the Schindlers got caught up in the right to life movement. I believe they have sold their souls to these people. I do believe that her mother understands. I do believe her mother knew that this was Terri's wish.
But her mother was kind of controlled. So, as far as the rest of the Schindlers, I mean, if you look at her sister and brother before the media showed up, I think I can count on one hand in the last 10 years that Bobby ever visited Terri.
Suzanne, I don't think she ever visited Terri.
I mean, when Bobby walked into the nursing home prior to Woodside, they had to ask him for identification because they didn't know who he was. And to stand out there and say the things he said just blew my mind.
OLBERMANN: What changed them in your opinion? What—was there guilt that motivated them at that point? You say that your former in-laws had sold their souls to those—to the activists. Was that—what made this all happen this way inside them do you think?
SCHIAVO: I believe that they have been fed so much information through the Randall Terry's of the world, through the coalitions, the right to life coalitions, they were just inundate with this stuff and fed them power and gave them power to do what they were doing.
Like I said, with their father, I don't want to get into any back stabbing or anything like that, but a little greed with him. I believe her that mother, like I said, who really knew that this was Terri's wish. If you can watch Terri's mother throughout that whole proceeding, especially at the end when she made her speeches, you can tell that she was told what to say.
OLBERMANN: I'm sure this there is going to be people see this interview who don't listen or will not listen to what you say and will not give you a chance that no matter what you would say, no matter what evidence you would present, no matter what results were obtained in the autopsy, that there will be some people looking at the screen and forgive me for using this term, but will look at you still and say, that's a murderer. How do you live your life when you know there are people who are going to make that conclusion about you without having anything to support it on?
MICHAEL SCHIAVO: You know, I've been called a murderer for many years now. You kind of get used to it. But I got a good family support. I got a great wife now. Great brothers. You know, that's all I need. You know, I can be a big boy and have broad shoulders and brush all that of. And everybody is entitled to their opinion.
OLBERMANN: I don't want to go through the whole history again, as if you need to tell that story again. But one thing I always thought has been left out of the equation from what I've been able to tell from the history of your wife's illness, there were extraordinary things that you did in the beginning that don't line up consistently with the idea that there was this evil man who was rushing to get his wife off life support later on. Tell me about the first few months and years after the calamity befell Terri and your fundraising efforts and your career choice, tell me about those two things.
SCHIAVO: Well, when Terri and I first married, I was a restaurant manager for many years and always wanted to get into the medical field. Terri had the accident and in the beginning I raised a lot of money by selling hot dogs on St. Petersburg beach. The community where I lived, we had social dances to help raise money. And that was all towards getting Terri to California for an experimental surgery that would place an implant inside of her head that covered the top of her brain to help stimulate.
That procedure didn't work. We raised money to get Terri into the Mediplex (ph) rehab center, which is very expensive. These people deal with just brain injury trauma, spinal cord injuries. Terri was there for about six months and the final outcome of that was they couldn't do anything more with Terri.
But I continued to fight. I continued to give her rehabilitation. The swallow studies that the Schindlers say that I had never done. There were three swallow studies done. They all were conclusive in saying that Terri is never going to be able to swallow, she'll continue to need the feeding tube.
I fought many, many, many years to help Terri. And finally came to the conclusion this is not what Terri wanted and started my proceedings with that.
OLBERMANN: In light of all that, I guess this is a kind of a philosophical question. Before her death when we heard somebody involved in this, whether they knew what they were talking about, that they were related to her, that they were friends or it was just some of the protestors who were parked outside the hospice in that extraordinary scene last March and April, when they said Terri doesn't want to die, do you think really having been through the experience that you had where you didn't want to believe what the doctors were telling you, that this really was kind of a messed up version of the much more understandable and simple statement that you might feel in this situation, which is I don't want Terri to die? Were people just refusing to face the reality of what her life had become?
SCHIAVO: I think people were in denial. Let me go back with some of these people that got on the camera saying Terri didn't want to die and the friends and family. It just blew my mind that people were standing outside saying this stuff, that these people never even visited Terri in 15 years and all of a sudden they show up for the cameras saying this. Where were they for 15 years? All these friends and loved ones that stood there and said, Terri doesn't want to die, she's moving, she's talking to us. When did you last visit Terri?
OLBERMANN: I don't want to ask you to recap the entire experience, but what can you tell us about the final day?
SCHIAVO: It was very hard. It was very sad. And in my book I'll get into it further. And to this day it hurts.
OLBERMANN: Was there this sense of releasing someone, was there the sense of fulfilling the wish that you have always said she had for those circumstances?
SCHIAVO: Of course. Of course.
OLBERMANN: And for yourself, was there release then too?
SCHIAVO: Yes. It was a big sense of release.
OLBERMANN: Let me wrap this up with a couple personal things. You're married again?
SCHIAVO: Yes, I am.
OLBERMANN: Congratulations.
SCHIAVO: Thank you very much, Keith.
OLBERMANN: How did you preserve that event without it being a tabloid affair, without it being helicopters overhead with cameras?
SCHIAVO: It was hard, but we did it. I guess when we went down to apply for our marriage license the day before, that's when it started hitting the news wire.
But we were pretty good at it. We kept it quiet in our invitations, you know, they all knew, it was friends, family, loved ones, they all knew. They were there to support us. They came, we had a wonderful wedding. It was beautiful. My children were in it.
OLBERMANN: And you even got a honeymoon?
SCHIAVO: Yeah, about 10 of us, we all went to Vegas.
OLBERMANN: Did you have to use an assumed name or is life not that .
SCHIAVO: Everything we did for the wedding was under a different name.
OLBERMANN: OK. And I guess that's a legacy that unfortunately is going to be with you one way or another the rest of your life.
SCHIAVO: Yes, it will be. But you know something? Terri was a beautiful woman. And she'll always be with me.
OLBERMANN: Do you think you know why all this happened, can you sort of trace in your own mind the timeline by which Terri's life and your life became this political cause celebre, do you know why it happened?
SCHIAVO: You know, to this day I still don't know why Terri and myself have become this political move. This happens to people across this country every day. Hundreds of feeding tubes are stopped every day. The only thing I can think of is because the governor got involved here and he happens to be the brother of the president. That's probably the only reason I can figure out why this all became political.
OLBERMANN: Is this something to do with the media? Is this that one piece of videotape that showed Terri's head moving and her eyes open? In other words, I don't want to be grotesque and drudge all that up again for you, but if the videotape showed her eyes closed, would no one have ever known her name or your name in this context, do you think?
SCHIAVO: I would tend to say yes. If that video showed nothing, I'm pretty sure this wouldn't have been to the point where it was. But they showed that snippet of tape over and over again. That's probably about two minutes of tape out of four hours.
OLBERMANN: Never heard it explained. Why did that tape come from, how did that come to be on every television network on every television station in every television organization in the world?
SCHIAVO: That was illegally obtained by the Schindlers after the judge had told them—actually, had placed an order saying nobody is to video or tape or do anything of that manner with Terri and the Schindlers, during the second removal of the feeding tube, introduced this to the press. And that's where that snippet of tape came from.
Also a lot of the tape was from the doctors' examinations also. Where you see Dr. Cranford was sitting with the balloon. That was from the—a lot of the tape came from the medical examinations from the doctors.
OLBERMANN: I know it's asking you to step outside yourself and your personal pain and more than a decade of dealing with this on an everyday basis, but if you saw that tape and didn't know the story behind it or had not experienced it first hand, could you understand why people who were only seeing that tape would have drawn the conclusions that some of them did, that she was responsive, that this was not someone in the traditional vegetative state as laymen understood it, would you have been questioning if you had not known the whole back story?
SCHIAVO: If I had not known the whole back story, I would probably have questioned it. But then I would have done my homework and found out both sides. I wouldn't pass judgment on a two-minute snippet of tape from the news.
OLBERMANN: And I presume you would not have—if you were a doctor, you would not gotten up in front of the Senate and reached your conclusions based on that videotape or any other videotape that was presented to you?
SCHIAVO: That's unfathomable that a doctor would do that. It's just unquestionable that he stood up there and made that statement. And then turns around and says, well, I didn't do it. That's even more unbelievable.
This should not have happened, Keith. These politicians should have not knocked on my door. And I'm sure you would feel the same way if it was you. Sitting making a personal decision about your loved one in your own personal life, and you have these people that never even met you, never even knew you that all of a sudden are knocking on your door saying you can't do this. It's not right. This is America.
OLBERMANN: But you say knocking on the door yet they didn't really knock on the door, they sort of just came through the wall, didn't they?
SCHIAVO: Exactly. That's a better statement. No knocking. They just walked right in.
OLBERMANN: If they had knocked on the door—If literally one of them said I want to meet you and I want to come see her, what would you have said?
SCHIAVO: Come on down. I invited the president. I invited Governor Bush. Come down, meet me. Come down and ask Terri, here, shake my hand, she wouldn't have done it. Terri, can you look at me for a while and talk to me. She wouldn't have done it. The autopsy has proved that.
Terri was cortically blind. Something that has been said in courts for years. Dr. Cranford was the first neurologist to sit there and say she was cortically blind. And the autopsy proved that. Terri was blind. Terri couldn't talk, she couldn't swallow. The autopsy proved that.
Terri's brain was half the size of a normal brain. That's how much it had shrunk.
OLBERMANN: So now in the aftermath of all this, with the political action committee, you'll have to be in public to some degree. Are you prepared for that? Is it something you are now ready for, because obviously you have to the degree that was possible in the last year, year and a half, you have kept your privacy as much as anybody probably could under the circumstances.
SCHIAVO: I'm ready, willing, and going to forge ahead. I'm going to do this for Terri. I'm going to do it for everybody. I'm going to do it for every American in this country.
This is interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x310Bqr5Wic
Michael Schiavo claims that he was doing what his wife would have wanted him to do?
Traditionally speaking, if someone has a 'subjective repugnance' to an Extraordinary treatment, they are entitled to refuse that treatment, even if so doing would shorten their life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-rQ3tIabvM
Is it possible that Michael Schiavo was a loving husband who was carrying out his wife's wishes when he applied for her feeding tube to be removed?
Following Terri Schiavo's injury, Michael Schiavo looked after his wife at home for two years, enrolled in a medical course in order to care for her better and took her to numerous specialists including a clinic in California. Every specialist he consulted concluded that Terri would never recover and so he made the decision to fulfil the promise he had made to her.
Here's what Michael Schiavo has to say on this.
QuoteMichael Schiavo: Her uncle was very disabled. And he lived with his mother. And Terri said to me, "If I ever become a burden to anybody, don't ever let me live like that." And I said, "Okay. And you do the same for me."
Lauer: She's how old at that point?
Schiavo: 22?
Lauer: 22. I mean, I'm trying to remember when I was 22, Michael. And you know what? At that point, you never think you're gonna die.
Schiavo: But when you're—
Lauer: Is that the same thing as really stopping and thinking and saying, "No, Michael listen to me, if it happens to me, I don't want to live like that"? You never followed it up. You never, "Okay. Terri, you know, you said something a second ago and that was pretty dramatic. Let me make sure I understand what you're talking' about"?
Schiavo: No. Because I understood Terri.
Lauer: Her parents say they don't remember her ever saying anything like that.
Schiavo: They weren't there, Matt.
Lauer: But, that she never had a conversation like that with them.
Schiavo: But, I'm saying— Terri couldn't talk to her parents like that.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna12025860
Why would anyone doubt that Terri and Michael Schiavo had this conversation? People have conversations like this all the time, no matter what their age.
And why does everyone assume that Terri Schiavo's parents were entirely loving and benevolent. They were in denial about their daughter's condition just as they were in denial about her bulimia which they tried to play down.
Terri Schiavo had been a troubled teenager with weight problems who used bulimia to lose wight. Were her parents aware of this, or did they play that down too? According to Michael Schiavo, Terri was close to her siblings who rarely, if ever, visited her.
Michael Schiavo successfully sued the doctor who treated Terri for fertility problems for not disclosing her bulimia diagnosis and the problems with her parents began when her father demanded some of the money, so he claims.
Why is there such an overwhelming assumption that Michael Schiavo is lying and, in fact, sought to murder his wife.
Was it because of the publicity bandwagon which became attached to this case?
Did people become caught up in the media frenzy, and eventual political frenzy, because they mistakenly believed that this is a case of Euthanasia when, in fact, it isn't?
QuoteIs it possible that Michael Schiavo was a loving husband who was carrying out his wife's wishes when he applied for her feeding tube to be removed.
It is difficult to view anything Michael did as "loving" or attempting to carry out his wife's wishes, as Michael lived in public concubinage with Jodi Centonze, and had children with her. Mike "proposed" to Jodi in 1994-95, and even purchased a ring. Jodi bore him 2 children.
The only obstacle was "brain dead" Theresa Marie. That feeding tube had to go, so Terri could go, and Mike and Jo could live happily ever after!
Michael Schiavo, publicly shacking up with his mistress, certainly one interested in applying Catholic moral ethics!
Quote from: Bonaventure on April 21, 2024, 10:28:57 AMQuoteIs it possible that Michael Schiavo was a loving husband who was carrying out his wife's wishes when he applied for her feeding tube to be removed.
It is difficult to view anything Michael did as "loving" or attempting to carry out his wife's wishes, as Michael lived in public concubinage with Jodi Centonze, and had children with her. Mike "proposed" to Jodi in 1994-95, and even purchased a ring. Jodi bore him 2 children.
The only obstacle was "brain dead" Theresa Marie. That feeding tube had to go, so Terri could go, and Mike and Jo could live happily ever after!
Michael Schiavo, publicly shacking up with his mistress, certainly one interested in applying Catholic moral ethics!
QuoteWhy is there such an overwhelming assumption that Michael Schiavo is lying and, in fact, sought to murder his wife.
See above.
Here's a relevant quote from Fr Cekada's article, from the link posted by Bonaventure in the other thread.
QuoteEXTRAORDINARY MEANS. The resolution of the moral issue in the case hinges upon the definition of the term "extraordinary" - not as the term is defined by medical science, but rather as it is defined by moral theologians.
Pius XII's statement defines extraordinary means as those which "involve any grave burdens for oneself or another."
The emphasis, then, is not on the specific procedure that is performed, but rather upon the burden that results from performing it.
Moral theologians categorize as extraordinary those treatments that are physically painful, invasive, repulsive, emotionally disturbing, dangerous, rarely successful, expensive, etc.
If Michael Schiavo was telling the truth and he had discussed the matter with his wife and made a promise to her that he would never let her remain in the condition that she was sadly in, then he was perfectly within his rights to ask for her feeding tube to be removed.
It is entirely possible that Michael Schiavo is telling the truth. The feeding tube placed Terri Schiavo in a situation which, as she had already indicated to her husband, would greatly distress her. She asked him to promise that he wouldn't allow that situation to happen to her.
Michael Schiavo could have divorced Terri and married his new wife. But he claims he was determined to keep his promise to her, and not let her parents take control of her, especially after her father said in court that he would "cut of her legs" in order to keep her alive. This was after the possibility of gangrene developing in Terri's limbs.
At any rate, Traditionally speaking, Terri Schiavo was entitled to refuse an Extraordinary treatment which imposed a grave burden of distress on her and Michael Schiavo had the authority, as her husband, to make sure her wishes were carried out and order the feeding tube to be removed.
Quote from: Bonaventure on April 21, 2024, 10:28:57 AMQuoteIs it possible that Michael Schiavo was a loving husband who was carrying out his wife's wishes when he applied for her feeding tube to be removed.
It is difficult to view anything Michael did as "loving" or attempting to carry out his wife's wishes, as Michael lived in public concubinage with Jodi Centonze, and had children with her. Mike "proposed" to Jodi in 1994-95, and even purchased a ring. Jodi bore him 2 children.
The only obstacle was "brain dead" Theresa Marie. That feeding tube had to go, so Terri could go, and Mike and Jo could live happily ever after!
Michael Schiavo, publicly shacking up with his mistress, certainly one interested in applying Catholic moral ethics!
Sorry, I think I've answered your points in the post above.
Michael Schiavo could have divorced Terri and remarried. But that would have involved handing her over to her parents who raised a troubled, bulimic daughter who they rarely discussed anything important with.
Instead he was determined to have her wishes fulfilled and therefore had to endure untold slanders, accusations and screaming mobs outside his door.
Sounds like Bergoglian ethics. When he passes perhaps, New Church will canonize him based on his determination to have his wife's wishes fulfilled, therefore having to endure untold slanders, accusations, and screaming mobs outside his door!
Quote from: Bonaventure on April 21, 2024, 11:24:16 AMSounds like Bergoglian ethics. When he passes perhaps, New Church will canonize him based on his determination to have his wife's wishes fulfilled, therefore having to endure untold slanders, accusations, and screaming mobs outside his door!
The question remains. Is it possible that Terri Schiavo asked her husband to promise that he would not let her remain in the kind of situation she sadly found herself in, bearing in mind that she had a relative in that position?
If it is, then there's another couple of questions to consider.
Did Terri Schiavo have the right to refuse a treatment when she knew that the result of that treatment would be an overwhelming burden to her? And did Terri Schiavo's husband have the authority to carry out her wishes
Tradition would say yes to both, I believe, if feeding tubes are considered Extraordinary treatment.
It seems to be a New Church thing to say that they are Ordinary treatment.
So which are they?
Quote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 10:56:22 AMMichael Schiavo could have divorced Terri and remarried. But that would have involved handing her over to her parents who raised a troubled, bulimic daughter who they rarely discussed anything important with.
Michael Schiavo was credibly accused by Terri's parents, of spousal abuse. (Which explains a lot.)
So OF COURSE he fabricated this story or a troulbe bulimic Terri.
Quote from: TradGranny on April 21, 2024, 02:24:24 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 10:56:22 AMMichael Schiavo could have divorced Terri and remarried. But that would have involved handing her over to her parents who raised a troubled, bulimic daughter who they rarely discussed anything important with.
Michael Schiavo was credibly accused by Terri's parents, of spousal abuse. (Which explains a lot.)
So OF COURSE he fabricated this story or a troulbe bulimic Terri.
Heart problems and heart attacks are well known effects of bulimia.
Terri Schiavo's collapse was caused by a heart attack which led to the oxygen deprivation which damaged her brain.
It is entirely possible that her cardiac arrest was a result of bulimia.
QuoteBulimia nervosa (BN) and other eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa (AN), have a close association with heart issues and other cardiovascular diseases. Indeed, some of the most serious medical complications caused by eating disorders are related to cardiovascular health........
...... Broadly speaking, eating disorders can wreak havoc on someone's physical health through the nutritional deficits they bring on and the additional stress they may place on vital organs, among other factors. And one area of the body that's most routinely impacted by eating disorders is the heart.
When it comes to bulimia nervosa, in particular, the condition has been linked to a number of cardiovascular risk factors and other issues.
Generally, the tendency to purge—through methods like self-induced vomiting, laxative misuse, or excessive exercise—carries the biggest increased risk of developing cardiovascular issues. These types of behaviors have been associated with a wide range of heart complications, including:
Congestive heart failure
Increased heart rate
Heart muscle damage
Hypotension
Electrolyte imbalance is another issue often caused by binging and purging behaviors. This condition, in which the body fails to properly regulate fluids, can be potentially life-threatening, leading to heart failure and other complications.
https://bulimia.com/bulimia-health-risks/heart-problems/
Terri Schiavo's cardiac arrest and collapse fits with the bulimia diagnosis. Her parents might not have wanted to acknowledge her condition fully, or accept her situation following her collapse but this refusal doesn't make Michael Schiavo a liar, an abuser or a murderer.
If Terri Schiavo was bulimic, there is no mystery around her cardiac arrest and collapse. Cardiac arrest is a well-known effect of bulimia.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 10:49:21 AMHere's a relevant quote from Fr Cekada's article, from the link posted by Bonaventure in the other thread.
QuoteEXTRAORDINARY MEANS. The resolution of the moral issue in the case hinges upon the definition of the term "extraordinary" - not as the term is defined by medical science, but rather as it is defined by moral theologians.
Pius XII's statement defines extraordinary means as those which "involve any grave burdens for oneself or another."
The emphasis, then, is not on the specific procedure that is performed, but rather upon the burden that results from performing it.
Moral theologians categorize as extraordinary those treatments that are physically painful, invasive, repulsive, emotionally disturbing, dangerous, rarely successful, expensive, etc.
...
[What] if Michael Schiavo was telling the truth and he had discussed the matter with his wife and made a promise to her that he would never let her remain in the condition that she was sadly in?
It is entirely possible that Michael Schiavo is telling the truth.
I'm very glad you brought this up, because this is an important point to clarify, especially for those here with dependents or aging parents for whom this may become a real life issue.
It has been established that this particular instance was a clear case of euthanasia, the least disputable example being not supplying a woman with food and water.
Certainly we can assume that no one here would even dream of doing the same to one of their own relatives.
But here is another key mistake many have made in their arguments about grave burdens and an example of why we are morally obliged to first research and look into a topic before making judgements about it and to consult with qualified priests.
https://sspx.org/en/live-and-let-30376
Here is an SSPX article,
"TO LIVE AND LET DIE: some questions on the moral limits of medical treatment"
by Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara, a traditional Catholic theology professor for 30 years, explaining
not only that
1) The simple standard for hundreds of years prior to the 1950's for what were previously called "obligatory" means was
"
The means that are commonly used by men to preserve their own life and which are easily available to the vast majority of people."
which actually obliges far
more, not less, medical intervention.
but that
2) (And this is where Fr. Cekada was just plain mistaken- again, I do not judge him in any way for making an honest mistake or have anything against him personally)
2)
the pre-Vatican II Church (and just to clarify, in fairness, this is
still the official position of the current Church) absolutely never allowed for life and death decisions to be made on the basis of the burden of "
the quality of the life" saved, but only ever on the burden of "
the objective quality of the means" used.
There was never even a question in any Catholic mind of not saving a life based on it being a burdensome one until first in an article in 1974, by the most liberal of the liberal American Jesuits, Fr. Richard McCormick, who is most famous for his work supporting abortion and birth control.
And finally another important question you bring up and which is answered in Catholic teaching, explained in this article and elsewhere,
3)
We are never allowed to make any decision whatsoever with the intention of causing death.Regardless of anyone's wishes true or false. To do so would always be either murder or suicide.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 21, 2024, 03:37:21 PM(And this is where Fr. Cekada was just plain mistaken- again, I do not judge him in any way for making an honest mistake or have anything against him personally)
2) the pre-Vatican II Church (and just to clarify, in fairness, this is still the official position of the current Church) absolutely never allowed for life and death decisions to be made on the basis of the burden of "the quality of the life" saved, but only ever on the burden of "the objective quality of the means" used.
I'm also glad that you posted this SSPX article which I am still digesting. The article seems to be in three parts -
1) a denouncement of the pro-choice, pro-euthanasia, secular, anti-life culture that predominates in the West,
2) a description of the Traditional teachings of the Church on the subject in question
3) a denouncement of the 'quality of life' argument for withdrawing feeding tubes and other artificial means of support from patients in severely incapacitated states due to extensive brain injury.
The article also concludes that feeding tubes are Ordinary treatment because, as you quote above, they are one of "The means that are commonly used by men to preserve their own life and which are easily available to the vast majority of people."
But feeding tubes are not "easily available to the vast majority of people", not by any stretch of the imagination.
The article is incoherent because it loses sight of Traditional Church teaching in amongst all the denouncing of the pro-choice/pro-euthanasia culture we are surrounded by. It bases its announcement that feeding tubes are Ordinary treatment on the flimsiest of reasons and then sweeps aside Traditional Catholic teaching by focusing on the 'quality of life' argument claiming that a secular, anti-life agenda is being forced here.
Terri Schiavo's case is NOT a quality of life case.
From the SSPX article posted by queen.saints
QuoteThe next theologian that we have in our listing is St. Alphonsus Liguori. He repeated everything that has been said before, but included another exception to obligatory action: the subjective repugnance of an individual to use a certain kind of medical treatment. He proposed the example of a virgin who, because of her delicacy of conscience and the real danger of temptation, refuses to be touched by a male physician.
Is it unreasonable to assume, given what we know about Terri Schiavo's bulimia and the promise she asked her husband to make, that she had a "subjective repugnance" to being fed by tube while she remained in an entirely dependent state?
If it is, then she was perfectly entitled to refuse the feeding tubes because they are not Ordinary treatment no matter what the SSPX article says.
Terri Schiavo's case should be judged according to Catholic Tradition and shouldn't be influenced by some politicised and over-hyped fear reaction to the forces of secularism.
"The means that are commonly used by men to preserve their own life and which are easily available to the vast majority of people."
"Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) is the most commonly used access for long-term enteral nutrition."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9189377/
"Over 3 Million People Globally And 0.5 Million In The United States Receive Enteral Tube Feeding Yearly"
https://www.strategicmarketresearch.com/blogs/people-receive-enteral-tube-feeding#:~:text=enteral%20tube%20feeding-,Over%203%20Million%20People%20Globally%20And%200.5%20Million%20In%20The,Receive%20Enteral%20Tube%20Feeding%20Yearly&text=Everyone%20requires%20food%20to%20survive.
"Enteral tube feeding is an effective method of providing nutrients for individuals who are unable to meet their nutritional requirements in different healthcare settings across the world [1,2,3]. In a study by Klek et al. [4] in Poland, implementation of HEN improved clinical outcomes and decreased health care costs through weight gain in patients, reduced incidence of infectious complications and the number of hospital admissions. In another study in Malawi, Brewster et al. [5] reported that routine tube-feeding was associated with improved body weight gain in the treatment of kwashiorkor (protein deficiency). A nutritional support team in Nigeria has used high calorie enteral feed in the management of protein energy malnutrition in children [6]. On the other hand, HEN has been shown to improve the nutritional status and quality of life in patients with advanced gastric cancer in China [7].
The use of HETF has become more common globally due to advances in technology, development of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) technique and governments' policy of shifting healthcare provisions from costly acute hospitals to community settings."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4425159/
3 million out of nearly 8 billion ......
Let me know when the Church decides.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 04:39:07 PM..given what we know about Terri Schiavo's bulimia..
According to what I can see in the court documents neither her husband nor any other witness ever claimed at any time that she wouldn't have wanted a feeding tube because of bulimia.
I also don't see him or any witness claim the feeding tube itself was what she would have specifically objected to, but rather that she wouldn't have wanted to live handicapped at all. The uncle her husband claims she would never want to live like, for instance, had no feeding tube, but a limp and a speech impediment.
"Thogmartin found that "there was no proof that Terri Schiavo ever had an eating disorder such as bulimia."
https://www.abstractappeal.com/schiavo/autopsyreport.pdf
Quote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 05:18:11 PMLet me know when the Church decides.
"Catholic moral teaching can be of great help to all people of good will in meeting this challenge. The Church teaches that tube feeding is, in principle, ordinary care and hence morally obligatory...
When thinking about PEG tubes we should all find inspiration in the words of Christ, that in serving others we serve Him: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me" (Mt 25:35–36)"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027085/#:~:text=Over%20thirty%20years%20ago%2C%20as,care%20and%20hence%20morally%20obligatory.
"First question: Is the administration of food and water (whether by natural or artificial means) to a patient in a "vegetative state" morally obligatory except when they cannot be assimilated by the patient's body or cannot be administered to the patient without causing significant physical discomfort?
Response: Yes. 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."
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070801_risposte-usa_en.html
Quote from: queen.saints on April 21, 2024, 05:25:25 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 04:39:07 PM..given what we know about Terri Schiavo's bulimia..
According to what I can see in the court documents neither her husband nor any other witness ever claimed at any time that she wouldn't have wanted a feeding tube because of bulimia.
I also don't see him or any witness claim the feeding tube itself was what she would have specifically objected to, but rather that she wouldn't have wanted to live handicapped at all. The uncle her husband claims she would never want to live like, for instance, had no feeding tube, but a limp and a speech impediment.
"Thogmartin found that "there was no proof that Terri Schiavo ever had an eating disorder such as bulimia."
https://www.abstractappeal.com/schiavo/autopsyreport.pdf
You can believe what you like, and even insist that feeding tubes are Ordinary treatment. At the same time, your position depends on Michael Schiavo being a liar and that his intention was to kill his wife. And you have no way of knowing if this is true or not.
I've put forward Michael Schiavo's position as best I can and to me it's entirely possible, even probable, that the effects of bulimia accounted for Terri's heart attack and subsequent brain damage. She got up in the night, went to the bathroom to vomit and had a heart attack. This is what happens to bulimics. And how else is her collapse explained? Some have accused Michael Schiavo of attempting to kill Terri that night.
Meanwhile, you are assuming that Terri Schiavo did not have what St Alphonsus Ligouri would describe as a "subjective repugnance" for the treatment she was receiving. You know better than her husband what she would have felt about it. How do you know they didn't discuss it? Perhaps Michael wanted to protect Terri's privacy and was reluctant to give too many details in public.
The Traditional teaching on 'subjective repugnance' for an Extraordinary treatment shouldn't be confused with arguments about the 'quality of life'. And definitely shouldn't be hyped up into a frenzy by those who misunderstand the distinction.
But that's enough now. We will never agree and I still don't understand your logic from earlier.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 21, 2024, 05:33:34 PMThe Church teaches that tube feeding is, in principle, ordinary care and hence morally obligatory...
One last point for clarification purposes ....
I take it that's the Conciliar Church you refer to, which has a pope who told Catholics to take the Covid vaccines?
I'm also aware of what JPII said on the subject of feeding tubes and I don't believe he was a Pope and neither did Fr Cekada. When I refer to the Church I mean the non-Vatican II Church .
"At the same time, your position depends on Michael Schiavo being a liar and that his intention was to kill his wife."
My position is based on him telling the truth that his intention was to end the bodily life of his wife, because he believed her soul had already left earth.
Which based on Catholic teaching is murder.
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00596/news-graphics-2005-_596603a.jpg?imwidth=350)
Quote from: queen.saints on April 21, 2024, 05:25:25 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 04:39:07 PM..given what we know about Terri Schiavo's bulimia..
According to what I can see in the court documents neither her husband nor any other witness ever claimed at any time that she wouldn't have wanted a feeding tube because of bulimia.
I also don't see him or any witness claim the feeding tube itself was what she would have specifically objected to, but rather that she wouldn't have wanted to live handicapped at all. The uncle her husband claims she would never want to live like, for instance, had no feeding tube, but a limp and a speech impediment.
"Thogmartin found that "there was no proof that Terri Schiavo ever had an eating disorder such as bulimia."
https://www.abstractappeal.com/schiavo/autopsyreport.pdf
To be fair the report also said there was no proof that she ever experienced abuse. But I thought the autopsy report was to be ignored because doctors can't be trusted....?
The more I read, I think: There are 2 sides to the story....and then there's the truth.
I'm still questioning how she lived 13 days without hydration. Something about this seems amiss.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 04:33:35 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 21, 2024, 03:37:21 PM(And this is where Fr. Cekada was just plain mistaken- again, I do not judge him in any way for making an honest mistake or have anything against him personally)
2) the pre-Vatican II Church (and just to clarify, in fairness, this is still the official position of the current Church) absolutely never allowed for life and death decisions to be made on the basis of the burden of "the quality of the life" saved, but only ever on the burden of "the objective quality of the means" used.
I'm also glad that you posted this SSPX article which I am still digesting. The article seems to be in three parts -
1) a denouncement of the pro-choice, pro-euthanasia, secular, anti-life culture that predominates in the West,
2) a description of the Traditional teachings of the Church on the subject in question
3) a denouncement of the 'quality of life' argument for withdrawing feeding tubes and other artificial means of support from patients in severely incapacitated states due to extensive brain injury.
The article also concludes that feeding tubes are Ordinary treatment because, as you quote above, they are one of "The means that are commonly used by men to preserve their own life and which are easily available to the vast majority of people."
But feeding tubes are not "easily available to the vast majority of people", not by any stretch of the imagination.
The article is incoherent because it loses sight of Traditional Church teaching in amongst all the denouncing of the pro-choice/pro-euthanasia culture we are surrounded by. It bases its announcement that feeding tubes are Ordinary treatment on the flimsiest of reasons and then sweeps aside Traditional Catholic teaching by focusing on the 'quality of life' argument claiming that a secular, anti-life agenda is being forced here.
Terri Schiavo's case is NOT a quality of life case.
Didn't the SSPX also push the COVID jab?
How could anyone do what he did if they didn't believe in it?
As articles at the time said, it's imperative when killing someone through dehydration not to let any hospice workers who don't truly believe in the process near the victim, or they might give in and administer ice chips or other forms of water, which is only ruining the bliss they are experiencing from arrhythmia and ketosis.
Unfortunately for this theory, since 2005, new research has shown that women unlike men don't experience euphoria from ketosis, especially not perimenopausal women in their 40's. It instead severely disrupts their kisspeptin and causes high levels of cortisol and other stress hormones.
https://elissagoodman.com/lifestyle/the-challenges-women-face-with-intermittent-fasting-and-keto-diets/
"The process of starving to death seems very barbaric but in actuality is very peaceful," said Dr. Fred Mirarchi, assistant clinical professor of emergency medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia.
"The patient's experience is really pretty benign," said Dr. Joanne Lynn, a hospice physician associated with Americans for Better Care of the Dying, a group working for improved end-of-life care. "Overwhelmingly, what will happen is nothing."...
"Patients [become] uremic -- filled with bodily toxins -- and are unaware of their surroundings," Mirarchi said. "They develop electrolyte imbalances that eventually cause an abnormal beating of the heart."...
"The heart will then stop and the patient will die," said Mirarchi....
"Going without water makes it more gentle," Lynn said. "Allowing chemicals [in the blood] to cause arrhythmia is more merciful."
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Schiavo/story?id=531907&page=1
edit: (The ABC link isn't going to the whole article for some reason. Am trying to fix it.)
From the famous euthanasia group, The Hemlock Society, that her husband's lawyer was a prominent member of:
"If the patient is well nourished, it will take two weeks if no liquid is ingested"
https://www.hemlocksocietysandiego.org/resources-voluntarily-stopping-eating-and-drinking-vsed/
Quote from: queen.saints on April 21, 2024, 07:13:14 PMFrom the famous euthanasia group, The Hemlock Society, that her husband's lawyer was a prominent member of:
"If the patient is well nourished, it will take two weeks if no liquid is ingested"
https://www.hemlocksocietysandiego.org/resources-voluntarily-stopping-eating-and-drinking-vsed/
Why does every other source say 3-4 days?
Quote from: Baylee on April 21, 2024, 07:32:16 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 21, 2024, 07:13:14 PMFrom the famous euthanasia group, The Hemlock Society, that her husband's lawyer was a prominent member of:
"If the patient is well nourished, it will take two weeks if no liquid is ingested"
https://www.hemlocksocietysandiego.org/resources-voluntarily-stopping-eating-and-drinking-vsed/
Why does every other source say 3-4 days?
These were in my first ten google search results:
'Process
You can live for a long time without eating, but dehydration (lack of fluids) speeds up the dying process. Dying from dehydration is generally not uncomfortable once the initial feelings of thirst subside. If you stop eating and drinking, death can occur as early as a few days, though for most people, approximately ten days is the average. In rare instances, the process can take as long as several weeks. It depends on your age, illness, and nutritional status."
https://deathwithdignity.org/resources/options-to-hasten-death/#:~:text=Dying%20from%20dehydration%20is%20generally,as%20long%20as%20several%20weeks.
When we look at fatal (or near-fatal) instances of dehydration which occurred in milder environmental conditions, it does seem that the human body might take a bit longer to succumb to death.
Reports of terminally ill patients committing suicide by voluntary dehydration suggest around 10 days will do it.
Phillipa Malpas wrote about an elderly student, Lieke, who made the conscious choice to die by dehydration. She had desired for a legally permitted assisted death with her GP but the law wouldn't allow for it. So, at the age of 80, when she felt that a reasonable quality of life would not return, she took matters into her own hands.
Nine days after ceasing to drink, Lieke is reported to have passed away pain-free, peacefully and surrounded by love.
https://www.precisionhydration.com/performance-advice/hydration/how-long-death-dehydration/
patients in persistent vegetative states can generally survive 12 days or so without fluids. Why so long? With no exertion, temperature variation, weather exposure, or other significant diseases to contend with, their metabolism and fluid losses are minimal.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/lifestyle/death-by-dehydration-can-take-hours-or-days/IC6EC6SA6475PB5FLQFQT2CAWI/
I also believe her family when they say that this is not what she would have wanted and that as a practicing Catholic she would have wanted to follow Church Law.
I believe that she would not have hired a famous euthanasia advocate to contest her "right-to-die"
But as even other pro-euthanasia advocates have said, the kind of evidence that was used in the case to determine her wishes is the kind that had previously been thrown out in legal precedent.
There is no good evidence that she wanted to die.
I do not believe that she had bulimia, because bulimia is a mortal sin and we are not allowed to believe that of someone without very solid evidence.
Her husband provided no evidence that passes the Catholic Church's teaching on rash judgement that would allow us to believe otherwise.
I don't believe the charges of abuse against her husband that are based on decades old hearsay either.
I do believe his public admission of adultery
His public admission of trying to kill her through infection
His public admission of not providing her with food and water.
I believe in the public "abuse" he showed when he killed his own wife
Then cremated her against her parent's wishes and the traditional teaching of the Church
And then wrote heretical and slanderous statements on the gravestone of a practicing Catholic.
We are obliged to assume the best of people until solid evidence is provided otherwise.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 21, 2024, 08:36:28 PMI do not believe that she had bulimia, because bulimia is a mortal sin and we are not allowed to believe that of someone without very solid evidence.
Her husband provided no evidence that passes the Catholic Church's teaching on rash judgement that would allow us to believe otherwise.
So, this is the basis for your refusal to accept that Terri Schiavo had bulimia and your insistence that Michael Schiavo must be lying.
But is bulimia a mortal sin? Can a serious mental illness ever be described as a mortal sin?
I wish you'd said this earlier. Then I would have known what I was up against. I knew there was no logic to your arguments. Now I know why.
Hey, Bonaventure, do you remember when I asked if you could explain the logic of queen.saints' argument because I couldn't understand it, because it baffled me. Well here it is. I've finally worked it out.
Queen.saints believes that bulimia is a mortal sin.
Therefore Terri Schiavo couldn't have had bulimia.
Therefore Michael Schiavo must be lying.
Oh dear ......
Quote from: awkward customer on April 18, 2024, 12:49:54 PMA discussion about the Terri Schiavo case has emerged in the 'Sedevacantism and Akita' thread in the Sede subforum. Since I have been a major participant in this discussion, I'm starting a new thread because the issue of the Ordinary/Extraordinary nature of feeding tubes is an important one and so as not to keep derailing the thread. I also feel obliged to defend the late Fr Anthony Cekada against accusations of promoting murder etc etc.
So here goes. I maintain that feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment and that Terri Shiavo was kept alive for 15 years in conditions that could easily be described as cruel and usual punishment.
But there are others who disagree.
So what does the Church say? Are feeding tubes Ordinary or Extraordinary treatment?
What is and is not extra ordinary is ambiguous and can change depending on the circumstances. What did the patient say that they wanted? How long do we anticipate the feeding tube situation is going to be. How expensive is this? Who is going to pay the bill? What is the person's situation while on the feeding tubes?
Quote from: benedicite on April 22, 2024, 03:11:54 AMWhat is and is not extra ordinary is ambiguous and can change depending on the circumstances...
How long do we anticipate the feeding tube situation is going to be.
Just to clarify, ordinary means cannot become extraordinary based on duration.
Only extraordinary means can become ordinary based on this criteria.
For example, daily insulin injections were established as ordinary means for diabetics prior to Vatican II, despite being a lifelong obligation. There are other considerations that could make them non-obligatory according to more modern interpretations of Catholic teaching, but not that one.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 22, 2024, 03:39:35 AMQuote from: benedicite on April 22, 2024, 03:11:54 AMWhat is and is not extra ordinary is ambiguous and can change depending on the circumstances...
How long do we anticipate the feeding tube situation is going to be.
Just to clarify, ordinary means cannot become extraordinary based on duration.
Only extraordinary means can become ordinary based on this criteria.
For example, daily insulin injections were established as ordinary means for diabetics prior to Vatican II, despite being a lifelong obligation. There are other considerations that could make them non-obligatory according to more modern interpretations of Catholic teaching, but not that one.
Ambiguous could also be in the sense that depending on the context. For example a major operation that has little hope of a long term success may be considered extraordinary. With time and technological development that same operation amy become ordinary.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 21, 2024, 08:36:28 PMI also believe her family when they say that this is not what she would have wanted and that as a practicing Catholic she would have wanted to follow Church Law.
Then cremated her against her parent's wishes and the traditional teaching of the Church
You do realize that cremation is allowed in JPII's and Benedict XVI's church, right? Not to mention there was no indication that Terri was a Traditional Catholic, and as a result, would not mind being cremated or maybe even want cremation.
This is yet another example of why we can't just go with what the JPII church says about feeding tubes. This is another reason why we should believe that
the Church has not actually pronounced feeding tubes specifically as "ordinary" means without exception. This is another reason why, until then, Traditional clergy and lay can come to different opinions.
I'll let AC handle the bulimia is a mortal sin question. Because that's the first I heard that the Church considers bulimia a mortal sin. I wonder whether JPII pronounced that as well.
And again, as for who said what, there are two stories. I believe the third one is the true one.
Quote from: benedicite on April 22, 2024, 04:30:43 AMAmbiguous could also be in the sense that depending on the context. For example a major operation that has little hope of a long term success may be considered extraordinary. With time and technological development that same operation amy become ordinary.
Yes, very good point.
One example of this is regarding ectopic pregnancy.
The Church has said that if it were feasible (which it's currently not, since no one is offering it) to surgically place the baby in the correct position, the mother would be obliged to take this measure to save the baby's life.
Two doctors, one in 1916 and one in the 1980's, attempted this and both times it was a very simple procedure and perfectly effective.
So only N=2, but still 100% success rate.
In the mean time doctors claim that it's totally impossible and "science fiction", when they have never once tried and currently world-wide research on ectopic pregnancies is going towards finding the most effective chemical abortifacient, never on saving the baby's life.
Quote from: Baylee on April 22, 2024, 05:11:09 AMI'll let AC handle the bulimia is a mortal sin question. Because that's the first I heard that the Church considers bulimia a mortal sin. I wonder whether JPII pronounced that as well.
Bulimia is not a mortal sin and that's why you've never heard that it is. Queen.saints is just making things up, like her insistence that feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment.
She should have said what she believes about bulimia at the beginning of the discussion. Then I wouldn't have wasted my time discussing this issue with her. I would have known then that her refusal to consider Terri Schiavo's bulimia for pages and pages of this thread was based on some half baked belief that only she has.
Bulimia is not a mortal sin and feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment according to the Traditional teaching of the Church, no matter what Queen.Saints says.
I don't know about the ordinary or extra ordinary means but I would say it became Euthanasia when that rotten husband decided to remove comfort from Terri while she was dying. You wouldn't do it to an animal, by removing the PEG feed which imo is extraordinary, she was going to die anyway so he just wanted to speed it up, what a disgusting human being.
And maybe, just maybe God allowed her to suffer for 13 days to wake the world up and expose what it is to interfere with God calling you home. Terri sure earned her place in heaven please God.
I remember my Mum begging me for a sip of water even when the hospice staff were using those glycerine swabs to help her thirst because she might aspirate with water, she was able to tell me that the thirst was horrific and she didn't care if she aspirated...I gave her little sips, she didn't aspirate.
Chestertonian who said that PEG feeding isn't all that comfortable and he had regular infections at the PEG site.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 22, 2024, 05:23:23 AMQuote from: benedicite on April 22, 2024, 04:30:43 AMAmbiguous could also be in the sense that depending on the context. For example a major operation that has little hope of a long term success may be considered extraordinary. With time and technological development that same operation amy become ordinary.
Yes, very good point.
One example of this is regarding ectopic pregnancy.
The Church has said that if it were feasible (which it's currently not, since no one is offering it) to surgically place the baby in the correct position, the mother would be obliged to take this measure to save the baby's life.
Two doctors, one in 1916 and one in the 1980's, attempted this and both times it was a very simple procedure and perfectly effective.
So only N=2, but still 100% success rate.
In the mean time doctors claim that it's totally impossible and "science fiction", when they have never once tried and currently world-wide research on ectopic pregnancies is going towards finding the most effective chemical abortifacient, never on saving the baby's life.
Do you pay attention to what the Church says?
You believe that bulimia is a mortal sin whereas the Church says it isn't.
What else do you believe that the Church doesn't?
Quote from: diaduit on April 22, 2024, 06:30:43 AMI don't know about the ordinary or extra ordinary means but I would say it became Euthanasia when that rotten husband decided to remove comfort from Terri while she was dying. You wouldn't do it to an animal, by removing the PEG feed which imo is extraordinary, she was going to die anyway so he just wanted to speed it up, what a disgusting human being.
And maybe, just maybe God allowed her to suffer for 13 days to wake the world up and expose what it is to interfere with God calling you home. Terri sure earned her place in heaven please God.
I remember my Mum begging me for a sip of water even when the hospice staff were using those glycerine swabs to help her thirst because she might aspirate with water, she was able to tell me that the thirst was horrific and she didn't care if she aspirated...I gave her little sips, she didn't aspirate.
Chestertonian who said that PEG feeding isn't all that comfortable and he had regular infections at the PEG site.
But the "disgusting" and "horrible" Michael Schiavo claims he was keeping his promise to Terri. Are you familiar with his side of the story, posted earlier?
What if Terri Schiavo did make her husband promise to never leave her in a totally dependent state? What if she did have what St Alphonsus Ligouri called a "subjective repugnance" for the treatment she was receiving and the situation she was in?
The thing about a subjective repugnance is that it's subjective. Just because one person can tolerate a particular Extraordinary treatment doesn't mean that everyone can. And Catholics have the right to refuse Extraordinary treatments that are subjectively repugnant. Michael Schiavo, her husband, was acting acting within the Traditional teachings of the Church and had the authority to do so.
Terri Schiavo's parents, on the other hand, refused to accept the reality of their daughter's condition just as they refused to accept the bulimia that had originated during her teenage years. Perhaps they were over-compensating for earlier neglect by stirring up a media and political storm which resulted in mobs of misguided, emotionally charged pro-lifers making Michael Schiavo's life a misery.
Queen.saints believes that bulimia is a mortal sin, therefore Terri Schiavo couldn't have had bulimia, therefore Michael Schiavo is lying. Is that typical of the level of understanding associated with this case?
PS. By the time Terri Schiavo died, her brain had atrophied to half its normal size according to the autopsy report. She had been unable to communicate at all ever since her collapse. Comparing her situation to that of your mother, who could talk, isn't comparing like with like.
I have a general question for those who believe that feeding tubes are ordinary means without exception/question. I'm hoping this question gets to the heart of the matter without the "noise" and emotion of the Schiavo case.
Do you believe that the Church teaches that we have the obligation to use a feeding tube and to never remove it (regardless of circumstances, how long we had it, etc) if we were placed in a similar situation?
Would we die in mortal sin if we included the removal of a feeding tube in some fashion in our own Living Will/Advanced Directive?
Would this be equivalent to Assisted Suicide (ie. "I want you to kill me") no matter what?
Furthermore, do priests advise Catholics not to do so?
When I look at it this way, I still find it hard to consider the feeding tube ordinary means and not extraordinary.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 10:22:17 AMIs it possible that Michael Schiavo was a loving husband who was carrying out his wife's wishes when he applied for her feeding tube to be removed?
The question is moot.
If nutrition and hydration are
ordinary interventions, then removing them would be either murder or, if she had indeed wished it, "assisted suicide", which most Catholics should be intelligent enough to recognize as murder by another name.
The decedent's wishes would matter only if nutrition and hydration were
extraordinary interventions.
Catholic bioethicists and the CDF maintain that they are, in fact,
ordinary.
Quote from: Baylee on April 22, 2024, 07:37:17 AMI have a general question for those who believe that feeding tubes are ordinary means without exception/question. I'm hoping this question gets to the heart of the matter without the "noise" and emotion of the Schiavo case.
Do you believe that the Church teaches that we have the obligation to use a feeding tube and to never remove it (regardless of circumstances, how long we had it, etc) if we were placed in a similar situation?
Would we die in mortal sin if we included the removal of a feeding tube in some fashion in our own Living Will/Advanced Directive?
Would this be equivalent to Assisted Suicide (ie. "I want you to kill me") no matter what?
Furthermore, do priests advise Catholics not to do so?
When I look at it this way, I still find it hard to consider the feeding tube ordinary means and not extraordinary.
I'm not sure if this link answers your question. (It also weighs in on Terry Schiavo specifically.)
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/end-of-life-decisions-ordinary-versus-extraordinary-means-12733
It seems to me that there is disagreement on this thread as to the true medical situation of Shiavo, and that that is at the heart of moral decision-making and moral judgment ex-post-facto. I think it is very hard to know definitively the morality of any case without intimate medical knowledge of it.
Note that I have no position on the case in question, as I lack such intimate medical knowledge.
Quote from: ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez on April 22, 2024, 07:42:10 AMQuote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 10:22:17 AMIs it possible that Michael Schiavo was a loving husband who was carrying out his wife's wishes when he applied for her feeding tube to be removed?
The question is moot.
If nutrition and hydration are ordinary interventions, then removing them would be either murder or, if she had indeed wished it, "assisted suicide", which most Catholics should be intelligent enough to recognize as murder by another name.
The decedent's wishes would matter only if nutrition and hydration were extraordinary interventions.
Catholic bioethicists and the CDF maintain that they are, in fact, ordinary.
I agree with you
if feeding tubes are Ordinary treatment.
The Conciliar Church might claim that Feeding tubes are Ordinary treatment, but the Traditional Church doesn't. Fr Cekada was a Sede, as I am, and it is his position that I am defending. Traditionally speaking, feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 21, 2024, 11:53:25 PMI wish you'd said this earlier. Then I would have known what I was up against. I knew there was no logic to your arguments. Now I know why.
I'm sorry you feel this way.
I was under the impression you had learned a lot from this discussion and would be happy to no longer live believing so many false claims.
So far since the beginning you have learned that you were:
Wrong about her not being able to breathe and being forced to use a machine
Wrong that she was "brain dead" (a very different condition, especially from a Catholic perspective, than PVS, which she was officially diagnosed as)
Wrong that any doctor who personally examined her in the 12 years before she died ever claimed that she could not take food and water orally
Wrong that the traditional Catholic priests and professionals in question who came to the conclusion that feeding tubes were ordinary means in this case were basing it off of post-conciliar theology.
Wrong that her husband had "the final say, traditionally speaking" in what kind of medical treatment she received.
Wrong that she was provided with ice chips and Jello
Wrong that one's ability to leave a hospital bed affects the objective standards of the means used to sustain life
Wrong that feeding tubes could never be considered ordinary treatment
Wrong that her doctors tried to administer food and water
Wrong that the armed guards were only outside and not in her room
Wrong that she was not considered alive by Church teaching
Wrong that "the claims of murder, execution and euthanasia are ridiculous" when she was denied any form of food and water and her husband testified multiple times under oath that he was trying to end her life because he believed she was already dead and that she had specifically asked not to be allowed to live if she was a burden.
Wrong that a human being can only survive 3 days without water
Wrong that her "body is signalling to the world that life is over, that it's time to go" when her body actually held out average or slightly longer
Wrong that her body was not truly alive and "only capable of being kept in a reflexively maintained state due to the intervention of a machine" when she lived for 13 days with no aid.
Wrong that it could ever be "loving" and not "murder" to violate Natural Law and carry out someone's wish "not to be allowed to live", if that really was their wish.
Wrong that I ever claimed Michael Shiavo is a liar or that my position depends on it.
I thought you'd be grateful to have learned all these new things.
Quote from: Miriam_M on April 22, 2024, 07:57:43 AMIt seems to me that there is disagreement on this thread as to the true medical situation of Shiavo, and that that is at the heart of moral decision-making and moral judgment ex-post-facto.
Yes, exactly.
The people arguing that this was not euthanasia have repeatedly been shown mistaken in their claims surrounding her medical situation.
Quote from: Baylee on April 22, 2024, 07:37:17 AMI have a general question for those who believe that feeding tubes are ordinary means without exception/question.
Which people would those be? Nobody ever said that.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 22, 2024, 08:13:49 AMQuote from: Baylee on April 22, 2024, 07:37:17 AMI have a general question for those who believe that feeding tubes are ordinary means without exception/question.
Which people would those be? Nobody ever said that.
I give up.
Queen. saints,
You should have disclosed much earlier that you believe Bulimia is a mortal sin and that this mistaken notion is the reason you believe Terri Schiavo couldn't have suffered from the condition.
It would have saved me a lot of trouble at least because I would have stopped discussing this case with you if I'd known.
As a result of this thread I am now convinced more than ever that Fr Cekada was right.
I'm also convinced that many people have been swept up in some kind of shared hysteria over this case, evident by the insults hurled at Michael Schiavo and the use of terms like "execution" and "murder", not to mention the mobs at his door.
Fear of the secular 'right to die' agenda isn't a good enough reason for abandoning Traditional Catholic principles in favour of made-up theology and claims of medical knowledge that can't be verified.
Quote from: Miriam_M on April 22, 2024, 07:57:43 AMQuote from: Baylee on April 22, 2024, 07:37:17 AMI have a general question for those who believe that feeding tubes are ordinary means without exception/question. I'm hoping this question gets to the heart of the matter without the "noise" and emotion of the Schiavo case.
Do you believe that the Church teaches that we have the obligation to use a feeding tube and to never remove it (regardless of circumstances, how long we had it, etc) if we were placed in a similar situation?
Would we die in mortal sin if we included the removal of a feeding tube in some fashion in our own Living Will/Advanced Directive?
Would this be equivalent to Assisted Suicide (ie. "I want you to kill me") no matter what?
Furthermore, do priests advise Catholics not to do so?
When I look at it this way, I still find it hard to consider the feeding tube ordinary means and not extraordinary.
I'm not sure if this link answers your question. (It also weighs in on Terry Schiavo specifically.)
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/end-of-life-decisions-ordinary-versus-extraordinary-means-12733
It seems to me that there is disagreement on this thread as to the true medical situation of Shiavo, and that that is at the heart of moral decision-making and moral judgment ex-post-facto. I think it is very hard to know definitively the morality of any case without intimate medical knowledge of it.
Note that I have no position on the case in question, as I lack such intimate medical knowledge.
I appreciate that you're not taking a position either way. I feel similarly.
As for the link, it doesn't answer it for me because I don't believe JPII has the authority to make such a conclusion. There is absolutely no reason why I should I trust that he has a correct Catholic interpretation here. I believe it is still an open question until a true Catholic pope makes a pronouncement on it.
I was actually wondering what others thought who seem to have been asserting that the feeding tube is ordinary means which is why it shouldn't have been removed. With queen's recent question to me, I'm not sure what the other side is arguing anymore. They are all over the place.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 08:16:47 AMQueen. saints,
You should have disclosed much earlier that you believe Bulimia is a mortal sin and that this mistaken notion is the reason you believe
...that according to Catholic teaching it would be wrong to believe this of someone without more evidence than was provided.
Bulimia is defined as, "binge eating followed by purging or fasting, and excessive concern with body shape and weight."
I was taught in traditional Catholic school that this behavior is gravely sinful, especially when it leads to serious consequences as was claimed.
If you weren't taught this in school, then it is another piece of information you have learned from this discussion.
Here is an excerpt from a traditional Catholic Catechism on how we are obliged to take care of our body:
" Our body is not our own, it belongs to God (1 Cor. vi. 13). It belongs to God, not only because He created it, but because Christ purchased it with a great price (1 Cor. vi. 20). We are bound to take care of what is the property of another. The tenant of a hired house has no right to damage or destroy that house, so we are not at liberty to injure or destroy our body, the abode of the soul, created by God and belonging to Him. We must not do with our body what we will, but what God wills...
we are under a strict obligation to do nothing that tends to destroy health or life.
Consequently it is a sin to rashly hazard one's life, wantonly to injure one's health..."
http://www.catholictradition.org/Tradition/commandment5.htm
"Bulimia nervosa" was first ever diagnosed as a "mental disorder" in 1980, well after Vatican II.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/482466/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulimia_nervosa
Bulimia is a psychological illness - the result of internal perverse self-concept (perfectionist standards, craving for attention, hatred of self, or other). Mortal sin requires full consent of the will and full control of one's faculties.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 07:07:48 AMQuote from: diaduit on April 22, 2024, 06:30:43 AMI don't know about the ordinary or extra ordinary means but I would say it became Euthanasia when that rotten husband decided to remove comfort from Terri while she was dying. You wouldn't do it to an animal, by removing the PEG feed which imo is extraordinary, she was going to die anyway so he just wanted to speed it up, what a disgusting human being.
And maybe, just maybe God allowed her to suffer for 13 days to wake the world up and expose what it is to interfere with God calling you home. Terri sure earned her place in heaven please God.
I remember my Mum begging me for a sip of water even when the hospice staff were using those glycerine swabs to help her thirst because she might aspirate with water, she was able to tell me that the thirst was horrific and she didn't care if she aspirated...I gave her little sips, she didn't aspirate.
Chestertonian who said that PEG feeding isn't all that comfortable and he had regular infections at the PEG site.
But the "disgusting" and "horrible" Michael Schiavo claims he was keeping his promise to Terri. Are you familiar with his side of the story, posted earlier?
What if Terri Schiavo did make her husband promise to never leave her in a totally dependent state? What if she did have what St Alphonsus Ligouri called a "subjective repugnance" for the treatment she was receiving and the situation she was in?
The thing about a subjective repugnance is that it's subjective. Just because one person can tolerate a particular Extraordinary treatment doesn't mean that everyone can. And Catholics have the right to refuse Extraordinary treatments that are subjectively repugnant. Michael Schiavo, her husband, was acting acting within the Traditional teachings of the Church and had the authority to do so.
Terri Schiavo's parents, on the other hand, refused to accept the reality of their daughter's condition just as they refused to accept the bulimia that had originated during her teenage years. Perhaps they were over-compensating for earlier neglect by stirring up a media and political storm which resulted in mobs of misguided, emotionally charged pro-lifers making Michael Schiavo's life a misery.
Queen.saints believes that bulimia is a mortal sin, therefore Terri Schiavo couldn't have had bulimia, therefore Michael Schiavo is lying. Is that typical of the level of understanding associated with this case?
PS. By the time Terri Schiavo died, her brain had atrophied to half its normal size according to the autopsy report. She had been unable to communicate at all ever since her collapse. Comparing her situation to that of your mother, who could talk, isn't comparing like with like.
Yes AC, I read his side and not for a split second do I believe one iota from him, if he truly did what he did out of love he would have allowed Terri to have the comfort of relieving her dry mouth when dying and he would have allowed the priest to give her communion. Nope he does not come to this with clean hands. As for fulfilling a promise, knowing 22 year olds glib comments for example , I'd love to go out like a light (not Terri but countless people I know) and when it comes to it, they cling to life and try all means possible to stay alive. I can't take seriously the comment in the context that testimonies quoted in this thread.
Terri was murdered imo, the time to not put in the peg feed was initially when she was in a coma and see if nature takes its course but once it was in, ML schiavo had no right to remove it.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 21, 2024, 07:13:14 PMFrom the famous euthanasia group, The Hemlock Society, that her husband's lawyer was a prominent member of:
That explains a lot about the husband.
Here is an article by John Daly that I found on Cathinfo which discusses Fr Cekada's argument.
QuoteFr. Cekada put together an article on these matters, which made waves by being opposed to the almost unanimous voice of Catholics and conservatives. His main arguments were as follows:
1. The Pro-Life Movement, where Catholics work hand-in-hand with Protestants, Jєωs and humanists, sometimes tends to make an absolute out of prolonging human life, something which is not in conformity with sound doctrine. In such cases, we must always resist being dragged down to the emotional level and make our judgments based on the teachings of the Holy See and approved theologians.
2. The Church teaches that it is not against the 5th Commandment to terminate extraordinary means of prolonging life.
3. The permanent use of feeding and hydration tubes for the benefit of a sick person, without any hope of recovery to more than a semi-vegetative state can be considered as an extraordinary means. Such is the judgment of several respected theologians from the time of Pius XII.
4. In a case where solid arguments exist in favor of the legality of terminating the means of artificially maintaining life, where civil law is neutral, and where the doctors leave the decision to others, the one and only person (according to Catholic theology) competent to make such a decision for a married woman, is her husband, and not her parents.
5. This being the case, it is far from obvious that a mortal sin would be committed in removing the feeding tubes from Terri Schiavo. To maintain the contrary argument is to pervert the conscience of Catholics not only as regards their obligations to maintain life artificially, but also on the matter of spousal rights.
https://www.cathinfo.com/crisis-in-the-church/fr-cekada-euthanasia-and-the-terri-schiavo-affair/
According to the comments, Michael Schiavo, Terri's brother and sister-in-law all testified in court that Terri had told them that she did not want to be kept alive by artificial means in a dependent state. I'll check this, if possible.
mistake
Quote from: Miriam_M on April 22, 2024, 10:50:08 AMBulimia is a psychological illness - the result of internal perverse self-concept (perfectionist standards, craving for attention, hatred of self, or other). Mortal sin requires full consent of the will and full control of one's faculties.
Just clarifying that I still have no position in the argument, since I am not well-read on it. I posted my comment to remind us what the Church's position is regarding mortal sin in general (knowledge, conscious decision, control of faculties).
Quote from: Bonaventure on April 18, 2024, 05:15:25 PMQuote from: drummerboy on April 18, 2024, 04:56:39 PMWeren't her fluids withheld as well? I can't remember the exact details, I was a wee lad at the time.
Yes, and Cekada references that:
"A wicked husband still maintains his headship over the wife before God and his "domestic and paternal authority. He has the right to say yes or no to ice chips and Jello, unless and until an ecclesiastical or civil court, for a grave and just reason, legitimately impedes him from exercising his right."
The ice chips and Jell-O reference would only be for someone who could swallow.
A husband has the right to refuse jello and ice chips for his wife? What if she's conscious? Does he still have the same right?
Quote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 01:40:56 PMHere is an article by John Daly that I found on Cathinfo which discusses Fr Cekada's argument.
QuoteFr. Cekada put together an article on these matters, which made waves by being opposed to the almost unanimous voice of Catholics and conservatives. His main arguments were as follows:
1. The Pro-Life Movement, where Catholics work hand-in-hand with Protestants, Jєωs and humanists, sometimes tends to make an absolute out of prolonging human life, something which is not in conformity with sound doctrine. In such cases, we must always resist being dragged down to the emotional level and make our judgments based on the teachings of the Holy See and approved theologians.
2. The Church teaches that it is not against the 5th Commandment to terminate extraordinary means of prolonging life.
3. The permanent use of feeding and hydration tubes for the benefit of a sick person, without any hope of recovery to more than a semi-vegetative state can be considered as an extraordinary means. Such is the judgment of several respected theologians from the time of Pius XII.
4. In a case where solid arguments exist in favor of the legality of terminating the means of artificially maintaining life, where civil law is neutral, and where the doctors leave the decision to others, the one and only person (according to Catholic theology) competent to make such a decision for a married woman, is her husband, and not her parents.
5. This being the case, it is far from obvious that a mortal sin would be committed in removing the feeding tubes from Terri Schiavo. To maintain the contrary argument is to pervert the conscience of Catholics not only as regards their obligations to maintain life artificially, but also on the matter of spousal rights.
https://www.cathinfo.com/crisis-in-the-church/fr-cekada-euthanasia-and-the-terri-schiavo-affair/
Interesting that I cannot find this John Daly article on the internet.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 01:40:56 PMHere is an article by John Daly that I found on Cathinfo which discusses Fr Cekada's argument.
QuoteFr. Cekada put together an article on these matters, which made waves by being opposed to the almost unanimous voice of Catholics and conservatives. His main arguments were as follows:
1. The Pro-Life Movement, where Catholics work hand-in-hand with Protestants, Jєωs and humanists, sometimes tends to make an absolute out of prolonging human life, something which is not in conformity with sound doctrine. In such cases, we must always resist being dragged down to the emotional level and make our judgments based on the teachings of the Holy See and approved theologians.
2. The Church teaches that it is not against the 5th Commandment to terminate extraordinary means of prolonging life.
3. The permanent use of feeding and hydration tubes for the benefit of a sick person, without any hope of recovery to more than a semi-vegetative state can be considered as an extraordinary means. Such is the judgment of several respected theologians from the time of Pius XII.
4. In a case where solid arguments exist in favor of the legality of terminating the means of artificially maintaining life, where civil law is neutral, and where the doctors leave the decision to others, the one and only person (according to Catholic theology) competent to make such a decision for a married woman, is her husband, and not her parents.
5. This being the case, it is far from obvious that a mortal sin would be committed in removing the feeding tubes from Terri Schiavo. To maintain the contrary argument is to pervert the conscience of Catholics not only as regards their obligations to maintain life artificially, but also on the matter of spousal rights.
https://www.cathinfo.com/crisis-in-the-church/fr-cekada-euthanasia-and-the-terri-schiavo-affair/
According to the comments, Michael Schiavo, Terri's brother and sister-in-law all testified in court that Terri had told them that she did not want to be kept alive by artificial means in a dependent state. I'll check this, if possible.
"Without any hope of recovery to more than a semi-vegetative state can be considered as an extraordinary means. Such is the judgment of several respected theologians from the time of Pius XII"
No, what the respected theologians said is that when there is no hope of recovery to "life", then all means ordinary and extraordinary are considered useless and non-obligatory because we are going to die anyway.
And other respected theologians citing earlier more established Church teaching respectfully disagreed with them and said that just because we are certainly dying of one thing, doesn't mean we can let ourselves die of everything.
And this healthy debate didn't really matter because both sides agreed that in practice one should err on the side of caution and adopt the second approach.
No one but a most liberal pro-abortion, pro-contraception, post-conciliar theologian after Vatican II suggested that the recovery should be more than "alive". And his position was condemned by the Church.
The Church has always taught and still teaches to this day that even someone in the most vegetative, blind, half-brained, uncommunicative, non-verbal of states who is not dying is obliged to preserve their life.
Because all life is precious and a gift from God.
" In a case where solid arguments exist in favor of the legality of terminating the means of artificially maintaining life, where civil law is neutral, and where the doctors leave the decision to others, the one and only person (according to Catholic theology) competent to make such a decision for a married woman, is her husband, and not her parents."
"Catholic theology" has never taught this, not at all.
The Church teaches that each person is responsible for and therefore has the right to make these decisions themselves.
Therefore, the person who is actually representing their real wishes, is the only person who has any right.
"To maintain otherwise" is to contradict the Catholic teaching.
Quote from: Miriam_M on April 22, 2024, 02:18:16 PMQuote from: Miriam_M on April 22, 2024, 10:50:08 AMBulimia is a psychological illness - the result of internal perverse self-concept (perfectionist standards, craving for attention, hatred of self, or other). Mortal sin requires full consent of the will and full control of one's faculties.
Just clarifying that I still have no position in the argument, since I am not well-read on it. I posted my comment to remind us what the Church's position is regarding mortal sin in general (knowledge, conscious decision, control of faculties).
And just to clarify,
"Bulimia" as I meant it and as the word was used until recent history is an act of eating in a manner that is objectively gravely sinful. Of course a related mental illness would and often does affect culpability. It would affect any action.
But the act itself is intrinsically wrong and we cannot believe that a woman committed this act and caused herself permanent brain damage based on testimony such as "she used to always excuse herself after restaurant meals" and "she was on a low calorie high-tea diet".
" While the psychological disorder "bulimia nervosa" is relatively new, the word "bulimia", signifying overeating, has been present for centuries."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulimia_nervosa
On a side note, I do wonder what kind of tea she was drinking. I know someone who became seriously ill from accidentally over drinking herbal tea, which they thought was perfectly safe.
It's something to use with caution.
Quote from: diaduit on April 22, 2024, 12:00:18 PMYes AC, I read his side and not for a split second do I believe one iota from him, if he truly did what he did out of love he would have allowed Terri to have the comfort of relieving her dry mouth when dying and he would have allowed the priest to give her communion. Nope he does not come to this with clean hands. As for fulfilling a promise, knowing 22 year olds glib comments for example , I'd love to go out like a light (not Terri but countless people I know) and when it comes to it, they cling to life and try all means possible to stay alive. I can't take seriously the comment in the context that testimonies quoted in this thread.
Terri was murdered imo, the time to not put in the peg feed was initially when she was in a coma and see if nature takes its course but once it was in, ML schiavo had no right to remove it.
" . "I would far rather err," says St. Anselm, "by thinking good of a bad man than by thinking evil of a good man." "
http://www.catholictradition.org/Tradition/commandment8.htm
Even if every single word he said he were true, what he did would still be gravely wrong.
That's what's important to point out, so that others don't make the same mistake and the only thing we can know for certain, because the Church teaches it.
We can never know what went on in his heart, so that's God's way of telling us to assume the best.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 08:02:21 AMTraditionally speaking, feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment.
:rofl:
There is no pre-1958 consensus on the "extraordinariness" of feeding tubes.
Quote from: ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez on April 22, 2024, 03:31:52 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 08:02:21 AMTraditionally speaking, feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment.
:rofl:
There is no pre-1958 consensus on the "extraordinariness" of feeding tubes.
What were the opinions pre-1958? If there was no consensus, there must have been more than one. What were they?
Throwing this out there. It was quoted in the original thread from 2015.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/004056395001100202
Unfortunately, this is only a portion of this article. Does anyone have access to the full article/PDF? It was written by Fr Gerald Kelly in 1951 and might prove helpful in this discussion.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 22, 2024, 03:00:34 PMThe Church has always taught and still teaches to this day that even someone in the most vegetative, blind, half-brained, uncommunicative, non-verbal of states who is not dying is obliged to preserve their life.
There you go again, making things up again.
The Church has not taught this and still doesn't, whatever the Modernists say.
"Vehemens horror, an intense and overwhelming emotion of horror provoked by the use of those means", quoted in the SSPX article you posted, has long been recognised by the Church as an entirely justified reason for refusing an Extraordinary treatment.
Double post
Quote from: Baylee on April 22, 2024, 04:01:27 PMThrowing this out there. It was quoted in the original thread from 2015.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/004056395001100202
Unfortunately, this is only a portion of this article. Does anyone have access to the full article/PDF? It was written by Fr Gerald Kelly in 1951 and might prove helpful in this discussion.
" The Duty of Using Artificial Means of Preserving Life"
Looks like it would be very helpful to the discussion.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 04:10:15 PMQuote from: queen.saints on April 22, 2024, 03:00:34 PMThe Church has always taught and still teaches to this day that even someone in the most vegetative, blind, half-brained, uncommunicative, non-verbal of states who is not dying is obliged to preserve their life.
There you go again, making things up again.
The Church has not taught this and still doesn't, whatever the Modernists say.
"Vehemens horror, an intense and overwhelming emotion of horror provoked by the use of those means", quoted in the SSPX article you posted, has long been recognised by the Church as an entirely justified reason for refusing an Extraordinary treatment.
No matter how vegetative we may seem to an onlooker, as long as we are alive we have a duty to preserve our life.
No matter how vegetative someone may seem to other onlookers, we know better than anyone, as Catholics, that they are a human being and we have a duty towards them as our neighbor.
" In the Fifth Commandment almighty God forbids us to destroy our own life, or that of our neighbor, or to treat the lower animals with cruelty...
Since the life and health of the body are of great importance for the life of the soul and for our eternal salvation, we are bound to take precautions for the preservation of our health and of our life."
http://www.catholictradition.org/Tradition/commandment5.htm
An intense horror of a specific means could exempt us from using that specific means. It doesn't exempt us from anything else.
"the longer we keep our health and our life, the more treasures we can lay up for eternity, where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, where thieves do not break through, nor steal (Matt. vi. 20). If we thoughtlessly do anything to shorten our life, we defraud ourselves of a part of our seed-time. The eagle takes the utmost care of its egg, not for the sake of the shell, but of the young eagle enclosed in the egg; so we should take care of our body because of the soul that dwells within it."
http://www.catholictradition.org/Tradition/commandment5.htm
Quote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 03:47:32 PMQuote from: ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez on April 22, 2024, 03:31:52 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 08:02:21 AMTraditionally speaking, feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment.
:rofl:
There is no pre-1958 consensus on the "extraordinariness" of feeding tubes.
What were the opinions pre-1958? If there was no consensus, there must have been more than one. What were they?
They hadn't been invented yet.
PEG tubes were invented in 1980 and have a "success rate of 95%."
" PEG and PEG-J tubes are important in patients with barriers to oral feeding, including benign or malignant conditions, iatrogenic causes such as radiation therapy that can lead to mechanical obstruction in the esophagus, motility disorders of the esophagus, neurologic causes resulting in oropharyngeal dysphagia, psychosomatic issues such as dementia, and mental retardation or developmental delay."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559215/#:~:text=They%20serve%20as%20alternatives%20to,%2Drelated%20mortality%20is%200.5%25.
Unlike the previous methods cited in the pre-1958 examples, they are portable, discreet, and easy to operate. They can be used "in the community setting" or at home, not only in a hospital.
This is why they reduce healthcare costs, not increase them.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 03:47:32 PMQuote from: ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez on April 22, 2024, 03:31:52 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 08:02:21 AMTraditionally speaking, feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment.
:rofl:
There is no pre-1958 consensus on the "extraordinariness" of feeding tubes.
What were the opinions pre-1958? If there was no consensus, there must have been more than one. What were they?
Again, the key is that one can apply Catholic principles to situations that may not have been dealt with in the past as is the specific case of "feeding tubes". Traditional Catholic clergy can come to different conclusions...especially those who do not consider JPII proper authority. There is no final Church say on feeding tubes pre-1958. It remains an open question.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 22, 2024, 03:08:15 PMQuote from: Miriam_M on April 22, 2024, 02:18:16 PMQuote from: Miriam_M on April 22, 2024, 10:50:08 AMBulimia is a psychological illness - the result of internal perverse self-concept (perfectionist standards, craving for attention, hatred of self, or other). Mortal sin requires full consent of the will and full control of one's faculties.
Just clarifying that I still have no position in the argument, since I am not well-read on it. I posted my comment to remind us what the Church's position is regarding mortal sin in general (knowledge, conscious decision, control of faculties).
And just to clarify,
"Bulimia" as I meant it and as the word was used until recent history is an act of eating in a manner that is objectively gravely sinful. Of course a related mental illness would and often does affect culpability. It would affect any action.
But the act itself is intrinsically wrong and we cannot believe that a woman committed this act and caused herself permanent brain damage based on testimony such as "she used to always excuse herself after restaurant meals" and "she was on a low calorie high-tea diet".
" While the psychological disorder "bulimia nervosa" is relatively new, the word "bulimia", signifying overeating, has been present for centuries."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulimia_nervosa
On a side note, I do wonder what kind of tea she was drinking. I know someone who became seriously ill from accidentally over drinking herbal tea, which they thought was perfectly safe.
It's something to use with caution.
AC's comments regarding Terri having issues with bulimia were most certainly considering it as an illness. It was clear. You, on the other hand, refused to consider bulimia the possible cause of her initial medical event because you said that would be imputing mortal sin on her and that we can't do that.
The bottom line is you were wrong to say such a thing. Dealing with bulimia is not a "mortal sin" and to question whether she had those issues at the time is completely valid. No one is imputing mortal sin on her.
Quote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 03:47:32 PMQuote from: ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez on April 22, 2024, 03:31:52 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 08:02:21 AMTraditionally speaking, feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment.
:rofl:
There is no pre-1958 consensus on the "extraordinariness" of feeding tubes.
What were the opinions pre-1958? If there was no consensus, there must have been more than one. What were they?
Nice try. You are the person attempting to claim that the pre-1958 Church taught that feeding tubes are extraordinary. The burden of proof is yours.
Quote from: Baylee on April 23, 2024, 05:29:39 AMQuote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 03:47:32 PMQuote from: ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez on April 22, 2024, 03:31:52 PMQuote from: awkward customer on April 22, 2024, 08:02:21 AMTraditionally speaking, feeding tubes are Extraordinary treatment.
:rofl:
There is no pre-1958 consensus on the "extraordinariness" of feeding tubes.
What were the opinions pre-1958? If there was no consensus, there must have been more than one. What were they?
Again, the key is that one can apply Catholic principles to situations that may not have been dealt with in the past as is the specific case of "feeding tubes". Traditional Catholic clergy can come to different conclusions...especially those who do not consider JPII proper authority. There is no final Church say on feeding tubes pre-1958. It remains an open question.
Please bear in mind that when the only two traditional Catholic priests in the world that we know of came to a conclusion contrary to that of every single other traditional Catholic priest in the world, they were not informed as to
1) what a PEG feeding tube actually is
2) how much money it costs
3) how convenient it is to use.
They said they thought it was pretty much the same as intravenous feeding which is an
1) entirely different medical procedure
2) that costs much more money
3) and can usually only be used in a hospital setting and be operated by professionals.
Now one of those priests is dead and the other has removed his statements on the matter from his website.
So every single traditional Catholic priest in the world is currently in agreement on this issue.
To put this in perspective:
Electric breast pumps were only really available outside of hospital settings as of 1999.
They are officially an artificial method of feeding.
There is no Church pronouncement on whether or not they are ordinary means.
Every other method of providing nutrition to a baby who cannot nurse naturally is more expensive and less healthful.
They can be much more painful to use (to the mother) than either intravenous feeding or a PEG tube and they at least take several hours each day.
If a mother said,
"I left my baby with no food and water for 13 days, until she eventually died, because a breast pump is an artificial form of feeding and the Church has made no pronouncement on it."
And someone said, "Oh my goodness, how horrible.
First of all, breast pumps definitely qualify as 'common, inexpensive, convenient, and beneficial' in most cases, so how did you reach that conclusion? The Church has never said that is ok.
Second of all did a doctor tell you that your baby couldn't nurse naturally?"
And she said,
"No in fact several different doctors and nurses told me she could nurse, but I didn't believe them."
"Did you even try?"
"No. In fact I made sure that my parents and my priest who disagreed with me also couldn't access the baby to try to feed her either."
"How on earth do you justify that?"
"First of all, because the Church has made no official pronouncement, I am entitled to come to any conclusion I want. I conclude this is extraordinary means.
Second of all, some doctors were of the opinion that my baby was
severely retarded, had half a brain, blind, and would be a burden to me for the rest of my life. I believe that she wouldn't want to live like that. Besides, I believe she already counts as dead, despite what the Church says and despite her body being unusually healthy for someone in her condition.
Therefore, I am not obliged to use this common, cheap, and convenient method to feed her, again, because no official pronouncement.
Third of all, as the child's mother I have the God-given authority to make these decisions, not my parents or my priest. I can decide whether or not she is artificially fed, because even if I feed her she will only ever be a vegetable. And I can also decide not to give her a small bit of water as she's dying. I can even forbid my priest from giving her Viaticum before she dies.
And another thing, two traditional priests who don't actually know what a breast pump is or anything about me or my baby's medical history have said that I am right. Every other traditional Catholic priest has told me I am wrong, but I don't believe them anymore than I believed those doctors who told me my baby could nurse naturally in the first place."
And the person says,
"That's murder."
And someone else who again doesn't know what a breast pump is or anything about the mother and baby says, "Anyone who says it's murder is being hysterical and illogical. I think breast pumps are extraordinary means and also that baby had a subjective repugnance to being fed by the pumped milk."
"Did the mother ever say that was why she didn't feed the baby?"
"No"
"Did the baby ever refuse to drink the milk or show any signs of distress while being fed?"
"No, never. And nobody who knew the baby ever claimed that, including her mother.
But she was just a baby and couldn't talk anyway."
Quote from: Baylee on April 23, 2024, 05:57:37 AMQuote from: queen.saints on April 22, 2024, 03:08:15 PMQuote from: Miriam_M on April 22, 2024, 02:18:16 PMQuote from: Miriam_M on April 22, 2024, 10:50:08 AMBulimia is a psychological illness - the result of internal perverse self-concept (perfectionist standards, craving for attention, hatred of self, or other). Mortal sin requires full consent of the will and full control of one's faculties.
Just clarifying that I still have no position in the argument, since I am not well-read on it. I posted my comment to remind us what the Church's position is regarding mortal sin in general (knowledge, conscious decision, control of faculties).
And just to clarify,
"Bulimia" as I meant it and as the word was used until recent history is an act of eating in a manner that is objectively gravely sinful. Of course a related mental illness would and often does affect culpability. It would affect any action.
But the act itself is intrinsically wrong and we cannot believe that a woman committed this act and caused herself permanent brain damage based on testimony such as "she used to always excuse herself after restaurant meals" and "she was on a low calorie high-tea diet".
" While the psychological disorder "bulimia nervosa" is relatively new, the word "bulimia", signifying overeating, has been present for centuries."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulimia_nervosa
On a side note, I do wonder what kind of tea she was drinking. I know someone who became seriously ill from accidentally over drinking herbal tea, which they thought was perfectly safe.
It's something to use with caution.
AC's comments regarding Terri having issues with bulimia were considering it as an illness...
No one is imputing mortal sin on her.
You're right and I apologize for the misunderstanding. I should have been clearer.
It's too late to edit but I have clarified my statement in a subsequent post.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 23, 2024, 07:40:38 AMTo put this in perspective:
Electric breast pumps were only really available outside of hospital settings as of 1999.
They are officially an artificial method of feeding.
There is no Church pronouncement on whether or not they are ordinary means.
Every other method of providing nutrition to a baby who cannot nurse naturally is more expensive and less healthful.
They can be much more painful to use (to the mother) than either intravenous feeding or a PEG tube and they at least take several hours each day.
If a mother said,
"I left my baby with no food and water for 13 days, until she eventually died, because a breast pump is an artificial form of feeding and the Church has made no pronouncement on it."
And someone said, "Oh my goodness, how horrible.
First of all, breast pumps definitely qualify as 'common, inexpensive, convenient, and beneficial' in most cases, so how did you reach that conclusion? The Church has never said that is ok.
Second of all did a doctor tell you that your baby couldn't nurse naturally?"
And she said,
"No in fact several different doctors and nurses told me she could nurse, but I didn't believe them."
"Did you even try?"
"No. In fact I made sure that my parents and my priest who disagreed with me also couldn't access the baby to try to feed her either."
"How on earth do you justify that?"
"First of all, because the Church has made no official pronouncement, I am entitled to come to any conclusion I want. I conclude this is extraordinary means.
Second of all, some doctors were of the opinion that my baby was
severely retarded, had half a brain, blind, and would be a burden to me for the rest of my life. I believe that she wouldn't want to live like that. Besides, I believe she already counts as dead, despite what the Church says and despite her body being unusually healthy for someone in her condition.
Therefore, I am not obliged to use this common, cheap, and convenient method to feed her, again, because no official pronouncement.
Third of all, as the child's mother I have the God-given authority to make these decisions, not my parents or my priest. I can decide whether or not she is artificially fed, because even if I feed her she will only ever be a vegetable. And I can also decide not to give her a small bit of water as she's dying. I can even forbid my priest from giving her Viaticum before she dies.
And another thing, two traditional priests who don't actually know what a breast pump is or anything about me or my baby's medical history have said that I am right. Every other traditional Catholic priest has told me I am wrong, but I don't believe them anymore than I believed those doctors who told me my baby could nurse naturally in the first place."
And the person says,
"That's murder."
And someone else who again doesn't know what a breast pump is or anything about the mother and baby says, "Anyone who says it's murder is being hysterical and illogical. I think breast pumps are extraordinary means and also that baby had a subjective repugnance to being fed by the pumped milk."
"Did the mother ever say that was why she didn't feed the baby?"
"No"
"Did the baby ever refuse to drink the milk or show any signs of distress while being fed?"
"No, never. And nobody who knew the baby ever claimed that, including her mother.
But she was just a baby and couldn't talk anyway."
That's an excellent example.
I find it very interesting that the reason this thread was "born" was an insistence really on the part of two posters to vigorously defend AC.
AC, whom I knew and spoke to personally, liked to pontificate on, and even seek out, drama.
It is a nice retreat to say, "well, there's no pope since 1958, AC and others can conclude whatever in clean conscience."
Other than AC and his best buddies Dan D (who before he died said that receiving the COVID vaccinations was "mortal sin) and Don S (who currently says that any "Novus Ordo baptisms" conducted after the stroke of midnight, 01/01/1990, is "dubious. This triumvirate also told other Catholics that any and all attendance at an "una cum Mass" is "mortal sin," and would deny the sacraments to those who disagreed), the entire Catholic world, whether R&R, full communion, even sede (Bishop Pivarunas, the CMRI, Fr. Jenkins, and the SSPV) all disagreed vehemently with AC.
I suspect the defense of AC is so as not to have any blemish on any of his takes. Which I frankly find bizarre.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 23, 2024, 07:40:38 AMTo put this in perspective:
Electric breast pumps were only really available outside of hospital settings as of 1999.
They are officially an artificial method of feeding.
There is no Church pronouncement on whether or not they are ordinary means.
Every other method of providing nutrition to a baby who cannot nurse naturally is more expensive and less healthful.
They can be much more painful to use (to the mother) than either intravenous feeding or a PEG tube and they at least take several hours each day.
If a mother said,
"I left my baby with no food and water for 13 days, until she eventually died, because a breast pump is an artificial form of feeding and the Church has made no pronouncement on it."
And someone said, "Oh my goodness, how horrible.
First of all, breast pumps definitely qualify as 'common, inexpensive, convenient, and beneficial' in most cases, so how did you reach that conclusion? The Church has never said that is ok.
Second of all did a doctor tell you that your baby couldn't nurse naturally?"
And she said,
"No in fact several different doctors and nurses told me she could nurse, but I didn't believe them."
"Did you even try?"
"No. In fact I made sure that my parents and my priest who disagreed with me also couldn't access the baby to try to feed her either."
"How on earth do you justify that?"
"First of all, because the Church has made no official pronouncement, I am entitled to come to any conclusion I want. I conclude this is extraordinary means.
Second of all, some doctors were of the opinion that my baby was
severely retarded, had half a brain, blind, and would be a burden to me for the rest of my life. I believe that she wouldn't want to live like that. Besides, I believe she already counts as dead, despite what the Church says and despite her body being unusually healthy for someone in her condition.
Therefore, I am not obliged to use this common, cheap, and convenient method to feed her, again, because no official pronouncement.
Third of all, as the child's mother I have the God-given authority to make these decisions, not my parents or my priest. I can decide whether or not she is artificially fed, because even if I feed her she will only ever be a vegetable. And I can also decide not to give her a small bit of water as she's dying. I can even forbid my priest from giving her Viaticum before she dies.
And another thing, two traditional priests who don't actually know what a breast pump is or anything about me or my baby's medical history have said that I am right. Every other traditional Catholic priest has told me I am wrong, but I don't believe them anymore than I believed those doctors who told me my baby could nurse naturally in the first place."
And the person says,
"That's murder."
And someone else who again doesn't know what a breast pump is or anything about the mother and baby says, "Anyone who says it's murder is being hysterical and illogical. I think breast pumps are extraordinary means and also that baby had a subjective repugnance to being fed by the pumped milk."
"Did the mother ever say that was why she didn't feed the baby?"
"No"
"Did the baby ever refuse to drink the milk or show any signs of distress while being fed?"
"No, never. And nobody who knew the baby ever claimed that, including her mother.
But she was just a baby and couldn't talk anyway."
This is a ridiculous comparison but a fine example of emotionalism appealing to absence of logic.
Terri Schiavo was an adult.
As if a baby would have a "subjective repugnance to being fed by pumped milk". When was such a baby ever born?
And if a mother did what you described above, then another adult would be obliged to step in and feed the baby.
Because it's a baby.
And Terri Schiavo was an adult.
Quote from: Bonaventure on April 23, 2024, 11:14:24 AMQuote from: queen.saints on April 23, 2024, 07:40:38 AMTo put this in perspective:
Electric breast pumps were only really available outside of hospital settings as of 1999.
They are officially an artificial method of feeding.
There is no Church pronouncement on whether or not they are ordinary means.
Every other method of providing nutrition to a baby who cannot nurse naturally is more expensive and less healthful.
They can be much more painful to use (to the mother) than either intravenous feeding or a PEG tube and they at least take several hours each day.
If a mother said,
"I left my baby with no food and water for 13 days, until she eventually died, because a breast pump is an artificial form of feeding and the Church has made no pronouncement on it."
And someone said, "Oh my goodness, how horrible.
First of all, breast pumps definitely qualify as 'common, inexpensive, convenient, and beneficial' in most cases, so how did you reach that conclusion? The Church has never said that is ok.
Second of all did a doctor tell you that your baby couldn't nurse naturally?"
And she said,
"No in fact several different doctors and nurses told me she could nurse, but I didn't believe them."
"Did you even try?"
"No. In fact I made sure that my parents and my priest who disagreed with me also couldn't access the baby to try to feed her either."
"How on earth do you justify that?"
"First of all, because the Church has made no official pronouncement, I am entitled to come to any conclusion I want. I conclude this is extraordinary means.
Second of all, some doctors were of the opinion that my baby was
severely retarded, had half a brain, blind, and would be a burden to me for the rest of my life. I believe that she wouldn't want to live like that. Besides, I believe she already counts as dead, despite what the Church says and despite her body being unusually healthy for someone in her condition.
Therefore, I am not obliged to use this common, cheap, and convenient method to feed her, again, because no official pronouncement.
Third of all, as the child's mother I have the God-given authority to make these decisions, not my parents or my priest. I can decide whether or not she is artificially fed, because even if I feed her she will only ever be a vegetable. And I can also decide not to give her a small bit of water as she's dying. I can even forbid my priest from giving her Viaticum before she dies.
And another thing, two traditional priests who don't actually know what a breast pump is or anything about me or my baby's medical history have said that I am right. Every other traditional Catholic priest has told me I am wrong, but I don't believe them anymore than I believed those doctors who told me my baby could nurse naturally in the first place."
And the person says,
"That's murder."
And someone else who again doesn't know what a breast pump is or anything about the mother and baby says, "Anyone who says it's murder is being hysterical and illogical. I think breast pumps are extraordinary means and also that baby had a subjective repugnance to being fed by the pumped milk."
"Did the mother ever say that was why she didn't feed the baby?"
"No"
"Did the baby ever refuse to drink the milk or show any signs of distress while being fed?"
"No, never. And nobody who knew the baby ever claimed that, including her mother.
But she was just a baby and couldn't talk anyway."
That's an excellent example.
I find it very interesting that the reason this thread was "born" was an insistence really on the part of two posters to vigorously defend AC.
AC, whom I knew and spoke to personally, liked to pontificate on, and even seek out, drama.
It is a nice retreat to say, "well, there's no pope since 1958, AC and others can conclude whatever in clean conscience."
Other than AC and his best buddies Dan D (who before he died said that receiving the COVID vaccinations was "mortal sin) and Don S (who currently says that any "Novus Ordo baptisms" conducted after the stroke of midnight, 01/01/1990, is "dubious. This triumvirate also told other Catholics that any and all attendance at an "una cum Mass" is "mortal sin," and would deny the sacraments to those who disagreed), the entire Catholic world, whether R&R, full communion, even sede (Bishop Pivarunas, the CMRI, Fr. Jenkins, and the SSPV) all disagreed vehemently with AC.
I suspect the defense of AC is so as not to have any blemish on any of his takes. Which I frankly find bizarre.
Except you know that's not true B because we (the 2 posters) both disagree with Fr Cekada on the una cum.
Isn't it quite possible that we just think he could come to a different conclusion that this is a matter of extraordinary means?
And to be clear THIS thread was born because YOU chose to bring Fr Cekada's position on Terri Schiavo into another thread rather than discuss his opinion on the New Rites which was the conversation going on at the time.
Again:YOU were the one brought this old controversy back to the forum.
Yes, I did, and I was wondering why there isn't the same defense regarding AC's stance on:
1. "Una Cum Masses" being a "mortal sin."
2. Catholics being denied sacraments if they disagreed and attended said Masses.
My entire point in mentioning all of these was that, AC held a lot of opinions that are frankly, bunk.
I've spoken with priests of the "9" who actually agreed with me regarding the Schiavo affair being a "murder."
"I don't know why he didn't just keep his mouth shut."
QuoteIsn't it quite possible that we just think he could come to a different conclusion that this is a matter of extraordinary means?
I think you want to defend his position as a legitimate but different opinion, rather than a grievous error, because that would be a "blemish" on his record and will get people to start thinking: if he could get it so wrong on this, what else could he get it wrong on.
I've been posting on this and other fora since the 2000s. I've been a sede and have attended non una cum Masses (including that of the "9") before Bergoglio were ever "elected."
I've never, ever, seen any such defense of AC in re Schiavo save from the two of you. Other than rabid SGG mass goers (in real life).
Quote from: Bonaventure on April 23, 2024, 11:56:02 AMQuoteIsn't it quite possible that we just think he could come to a different conclusion that this is a matter of extraordinary means?
I think you want to defend his position as a legitimate but different opinion, rather than a grievous error, because that would be a "blemish" on his record and will get people to start thinking: if he could get it so wrong on this, what else could he get it wrong on.
I've been posting on this and other fora since the 2000s. I've been a sede and have attended non una cum Masses (including that of the "9") before Bergoglio were ever "elected."
I've never, ever, seen any such defense of AC in re Schiavo save from the two of you. Other than rabid SGG mass goers (in real life).
And then there's Bishop Pivarunas who considers him in error, but he also recognizes that only a pope can decide these matters (incl una cum, etc). He doesn't throw the "Fr Cekada agrees with/is guilty of promoting murder" crap around which is another reason why I respect him so much. I agree with Bishop Pivarunas' attitude here, and I also agree with him that these are opinions/unsettled matters that the Trad clergy are allowed to differ on until a true pope decides.
As for why I didn't respond to your other comments? I actually did briefly respond to your una cum comment, but I wasn't about to juggle 3 topics you used to take us off the topic of the New Rites. One was enough. In addition, if you hadn't used the
inflammatory language you did about Father Cekada, I probably would have ignored/spoken briefly about that topic too. It's interesting that YOU didn't choose to just call his position a "grievous error". Rather you wrote that he said Michael Schiavo had a God-given right to murder his wife as if he agreed with murder. I wasn't going to let that go. But that worked well in moving the direction of that thread, didn't it? Bravo!
With respect to this comment:
I think you want to defend his position as a legitimate but different opinion, rather than a grievous error, because that would be a "blemish" on his record and will get people to start thinking: if he could get it so wrong on this, what else could he get it wrong on.[/b] I think that is exactly what YOU hoped to do by bringing it up in the first place. Here's the post YOU wrote in the other thread that took the focus off his position on the New Rites:
https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=31493.msg630672#msg630672
Quote from: awkward customer on April 23, 2024, 11:31:33 AMAnd if a mother did what you described above, then another adult would be obliged to step in and feed the baby.
Because it's a baby.
And Terri Schiavo was an adult.
Yes, exactly.
And other adults did try to step in.
Because Terri Shiavo was as helpless as a baby.
She was even more helpless than most babies, because even newborns can see and cry and scream and clench their fists to say they are hungry and she could not.
And that didn't make her not alive or take away the duty to preserve her life.
Or her right to be fed by the convenient, affordable method all her doctors and her husband said was causing her no problems and the only issue anyone had with it was that it was supplying her with food and water.
QuoteAs if a baby would have a "subjective repugnance to being fed by pumped milk". When was such a baby ever born?
This happens all the time. That's one of the reasons formula (another officially artificial feeding method) was invented.
It's one of the many reasons that 80% of mothers will have to use a pump at some point. It's to maintain their milk supply while they wait and see if the baby and/or the milk will change and they can take to it later.
It's most often caused by an allergy and/or something the mother is eating that the baby doesn't like the taste of, which can be difficult to pinpoint. It can also happen that even when the baby doesn't mind the fresh milk, they won't drink stored milk, because of the lipase content. But it's pretty much impossible to always give fresh milk, so this becomes an issue.
More emotional manipulation, with an added sprinkling of personal pinpricks as usual. Haven't you made another list of my defective opinions yet?
Terri Schiavo was a rational adult when she asked her husband to promise that he would never leave her in the situation she eventually found herself in. He testified this in court and so did her brother and sister-in-law.
New born babies are not rational adults. You are mixing and matching your terms again. I'm fully aware that breast feeding doesn't always go smoothly and that other sources of milk have to be offered. But it's ridiculous to claim that this can ever be described as a subjective repugnance in the sense that it applies to adults.
Have you read 'Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds' by Charles MacKay?
QuoteAnd then there's Bishop Pivarunas who considers him in error, but he also recognizes that only a pope can decide these matters (incl una cum, etc). He doesn't throw the "Fr Cekada agrees with/is guilty of promoting murder" crap around which is another reason why I respect him so much. I agree with Bishop Pivarunas' attitude here, and I also agree with him that these are opinions/unsettled matters that the Trad clergy are allowed to differ on until a true pope decides.
Except, AC and those who promote their "una cum is a mortal sin" stance are not stating that it's up for a pope to decide.
They already have decided.
Absolution and Holy communion have been denied.
Do you know anyone, who, living far away from a sedevacantist priest or chapel, cease attending undoubtedly valid una cum Masses and become a home aloner? Essentially committing spiritual suicide based on articles and sermons and videos by AC?
I do.
Another reason to "respect him so much."
Quote from: awkward customer on April 23, 2024, 01:15:17 PMTerri Schiavo was a rational adult when she asked her husband to promise that he would never leave her in the situation she eventually found herself in. He testified this in court and so did her brother and sister-in-law.
He specifically testified in court that she made him promise not to let her live as a burden. A promise it would always be wrong to intentionally fulfill.
I'm not trying to pinprick you. I don't lose respect for someone simply for being wrong. I'm wrong about things all day every single day.
I was probably wrong even to be back on the forum. The chapter I had today in "My Daily Bread" was all about not wasting time concerning yourself with other people's affairs when you could be working instead. And the chapter I linked to yesterday on the Fifth Commandment had a long passage on our duty to be working and keeping moving.
Quote from: Bonaventure on April 23, 2024, 01:16:21 PMQuoteAnd then there's Bishop Pivarunas who considers him in error, but he also recognizes that only a pope can decide these matters (incl una cum, etc). He doesn't throw the "Fr Cekada agrees with/is guilty of promoting murder" crap around which is another reason why I respect him so much. I agree with Bishop Pivarunas' attitude here, and I also agree with him that these are opinions/unsettled matters that the Trad clergy are allowed to differ on until a true pope decides.
Except, AC and those who promote their "una cum is a mortal sin" stance are not stating that it's up for a pope to decide. They already have decided.
Absolution and Holy communion have been denied.
Do you know anyone, who, living far away from a sedevacantist priest or chapel, cease attending undoubtedly valid una cum Masses and become a home aloner? Essentially committing spiritual suicide based on articles and sermons and videos by AC?
I do.
Another reason to "respect him so much."
I was referring to Bishop Pivarunas. I already stated I disagree with the una cum position. Why do you continue to bring it up/beat me over the head with it?
It seems your hatred for/grudge against "AC" blinds you.
Quote from: Baylee on April 23, 2024, 01:44:56 PMIt seems your hatred for/grudge against "AC" blinds you.
I don't have a hatred or grudge. He tremendously helped me when I was a teenager and I often pray for his soul.
I don't think he should be put on a pedestal.
Quote from: Bonaventure on April 23, 2024, 01:53:47 PMQuote from: Baylee on April 23, 2024, 01:44:56 PMIt seems your hatred for/grudge against "AC" blinds you.
I don't have a hatred or grudge. He tremendously helped me when I was a teenager and I often pray for his soul.
I don't think he should be put on a pedestal.
Could have fooled me. There's definitely an issue there. No one put him on a pedestal in the other thread. There was discussion on the New Rites and how layfolk should look into it, etc. And then you had a knee jerk reaction. Because he couldn't possibly be right about THAT!
Besides, wouldn't putting him on a pedestal mean one agrees with everything he does and says? Or does putting him on a pedestal simply mean one questions the majority view on this emotional case?
Edited to be more accurate.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 23, 2024, 01:24:51 PMI was probably wrong even to be back on the forum. The chapter I had today in "My Daily Bread" was all about not wasting time concerning yourself with other people's affairs when you could be working instead. And the chapter I linked to yesterday on the Fifth Commandment had a long passage on our duty to be working and keeping moving.
If you have to resort to claiming that a new born baby can have a subjective repugnance for a treatment in the same sense that an adult can, then maybe you should have a lie down or something.
And ditto for your claim that Bulimia is a mortal sin. Relax, go for a walk.
As for PEG feeding tubes - I know someone who has one for supplementary feeding because of a condition he has. He is active, fully mobile, fully able to communicate and obviously does not have a subjective repugnance towards the treatment he receives.
But for someone with an eating disorder like Bulimia, I can almost guarantee that being fed via tube inserted into the stomach would be their worst nightmare.
Can you imagine? No, because you refuse to acknowledge Terri Schiavo's Bulimia.
Instead you insist that feeding tubes aren't a problem which they might not be, unless you have an eating disorder like Terri Schiavo.
Do you know anything about Bulimia?
It's not only queen.saints who ignores Terri Schiavo's Bulimia, which is a serious, life-threatening eating disorder which likely caused her collapse and cardiac arrest.
No-one else acknowledges it. Apart from a couple of comments from posters who are uncommitted on the subject, there has been zero discussion of this. All the focus is on her suffering after the feeding tube was removed.
Is there anyone out there who is prepared to acknowledge that for someone with a serious eating disorder, being fed via a tube inserted into the stomach could easily be their worst possible nightmare? No?
How about the possibility that the promise she asked her husband to make that he would never leave her in a dependent state would be even more imperative if being in that state required a feeding tube - her worst nightmare? Is that another no?
People insist that Terri Schiavo was not in distress, was comfortable and glad to be alive during those 15 years. But she could have been living her own version of hell which she couldn't communicate, while the compassionate ones protested outside that her hell must continue.
Why the blind spot, why the refusal
I am often wrong.
But when every single living traditional Catholic priest in the world agrees that (going back to the original question)
1) PEG feeding tubes are ordinary means
and
2) Terri Schiavo was euthanized
then I am very confident that I am right in agreeing with them.
Yes, even Fr. Cekada never made such a claim.
So that leaves no priests living or dead who agree with you.
Quote from: queen.saints on April 24, 2024, 05:06:00 AMI am often wrong.
But when every single living traditional Catholic priest in the world agrees that (going back to the original question)
1) PEG feeding tubes are ordinary means
and
2) Terri Schiavo was euthanized
then I am very confident that I am right in agreeing with them.
You're avoiding the question of Terri Schiavo's Bulimia yet again, as you always do.
Is it because her Bulimia blows your argument out of the water?
Quote from: queen.saints on April 24, 2024, 05:06:54 AMYes, even Fr. Cekada never made such a claim.
So that leaves no priests living or dead who agree with you.
How do you know who agrees or disagrees me? And do you think I base my opinion on how many people agree with me?
Besides, I'd like to imagine that at least a couple of priests have informed themselves of the reality of eating disorders, especially bulimia, by now.
People, including Trad priests, refuse to acknowledge Terri Schiavo's Bulimia because her eating disorder destroys their arguments.
It is extremely likely that someone with Bulimia would have a subjective repugnance to being fed by a feeding tube inserted into her stomach, especially when she had made her husband promise to never leave her in a dependent state.
But this has been lost in all the hysteria.
AC:
I did a google search for "Bulimia Terri Schiavo",and I got this article from 2005:
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7318508
And another one:
https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2005/03/terri-schiavo-case-reveals-the-dangers-of-eating-disorders-22427
And another:
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2005/04/25/the-story-behind-the-news-story-schiavo-had-an-eating-disorder/
Let's imagine you're right.
Let's "blow this out of the water" as you've asked.
Despite what the autopsy report said, and there being no signs of bulimia, the coroner was mistaken.
Despite what her husband reported as to his intentions and despite him seeming very open about intimate family details, out of respect for his wife he actually was hiding what his true motive was all along:
his wife has a subjective repugnance to feeding tubes because of her non-mortally sinful bulimia and this exempted her specifically from using this ordinary means of preserving her life.
That does not contradict
1) feeding tubes are ordinary means
2) Terri Schiavo was euthanized
It would only mean
1) She had an exemption from this specific ordinary means
2) It was even more wrong than ever to ignore her doctors' and nurses' advice to try to feed her normally and euthanize her by not supplying regular food and water
And it adds in
3) It was more wrong than ever to ignore the advice of her doctors and nurses for 10 years at her previous hospice and the advice of the Guardian ad Litem and not even try different therapies that could have possibly given her more independence in feeding herself.
https://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/WolfsonReport.pdf
Quote from: Baylee on April 24, 2024, 05:36:14 AMAC:
I did a google search for "Bulimia Terri Schiavo",and I got this article from 2005:
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7318508
And another one:
https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2005/03/terri-schiavo-case-reveals-the-dangers-of-eating-disorders-22427
And another:
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2005/04/25/the-story-behind-the-news-story-schiavo-had-an-eating-disorder/
Thanks for this. I did post a link earlier in the thread, but no-one paid any attention. I've also just found another link which explains how Terri Schiavo's eating disorder could have caused her initial cardiac arrest and collapse.
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2024/02/26/how-eating-disorders-can-damage-the-heart
Terri Schiavo could have woken up in the night with a need to purge herself, gone to the bathroom to vomit, and had a heart attack. Apparently the paramedics could smell vomit on her.
But my main point here is different. It's that having an eating disorder like bulimia would in all likelihood make the experience of being fed directly into her stomach via a tube entirely distressing. Her distress would be off the charts, IMO, and this is what no-one seems willing to consider.
The promise she asked her husband to make, combined with the additional psychological torture of being a bulimic forced to accept food through a feeding tube into her stomach is strong evidence that Terri Schiavo had a subjective repugnance for the treatment she was receiving. But this is ignored.
Everyone also assumes that they know better than Michael Schiavo did about his wife's condition. But he lived with her bulimia. He saw it every day. And if he was such a villain, why didn't he just walk away and leave Terri with her parents? It would have been far easier for him to do just that.
Maybe he truly did want to keep his promise to her because he knew from personal experience of her bulimia what kind of torment she would have been in.
Terri Schiavo's bulimia destroys the popular narrative and that's why it's ignored, IMO.
And just to give this argument every angle:
Feeding tubes actually help bulimics overcome their disorder, not cause them stress, and are routine therapy for bulimia.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17408917/#:~:text=Conclusion%3A%20Tube%20feeding%20was%20effective,improving%20nutritional%20status%20and%20mood.
"Conclusion: Tube feeding was effective in these patients with bulimia nervosa, reducing the number of binge and vomiting episodes and improving nutritional status and mood"
https://www.mccallumplace.com/about/blog/feeding-tube/
"NG feeding tubes:
-Assist in providing relief to the psychological and/or physical discomfort that many individuals experience in the refeeding process.
-Work in conjunction with oral intake to restore nourishment during the nutritional rehabilitation process.
-Ease anxiety related to increasing oral intake"
@queen.saints The gruesome twosome of sede succubi wanted to prop up the Cekada argument just so that all of his other takes wouldn't be blemished.
I wish I had only focused on:
1. Leonine Prayers
2. Rejection of the Pius XII holy week abd St. Joseph the Worker.
3. Una Cum = Mortal Sin.
Honestly, Fr. Cekada's position on this doesn't reflect on him negatively at all.
I have had similar disagreements in person with priests before and we always parted ways best of friends. I sincerely hope that it is the same here and Fr. Cekada is in heaven or purgatory and can see everything written.
For example:
A good friend of mine recently recommended the Spanish book, "The Perfect Wife".
https://archive.org/details/perfectwife0000leon/mode/1up?view=theater
It's written by one of the most renowned theologians in Spanish history during the Golden Age of Spain. I absolutely loved it and it had so many wonderful insights.
It made me love and appreciate my mother in a new way and notice many beautiful qualities for the first time.
It made me love and appreciate my husband even more, as well, when I saw how the sections on "the perfect husband" could practically have been written especially for him.
It even saved me a lot of money straight away, because, despite being hundreds of years old, so much of his advice is still relevant and practical.
But some of the things he writes are just simply wrong.
For instance, (and I've never personally had any issues with nursing, it just keeps coming up as an example) he spends several pages using very strong language against wet nurses and says employing one is equivalent to fornication and abandoning your motherhood and wifehood and makes the baby a bastard and you shouldn't even have had the baby in the first place.
Canonized saints, including St. Monica, and holy women throughout all of Church history, including his own Queen Isabela, however, have done the complete opposite of his advice. Many saints had wet nurses, including St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
https://www.catholicmom.com/articles/a-patron-saint-for-women-who-cant-breastfeed
But he words it very strongly, dramatically, etc etc. He's really sure he's right and says it and I've even seen one of his quotes on the subject used in a French parenting book as if it were an old Spanish proverb.
But actually that whole section of the book has no saints' quotes or Catholic references, just one out of context quote from St. Paul that doesn't say anything about the subject.
It's also contradicted by not only thousands of years of human history, but also the civil and Church laws in place in Spain at the time.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8872442/
That doesn't discredit the whole book.
It doesn't discredit all his other works.
It doesn't mean he's not a great theologian.
It just means he's wrong about something, like everyone else, and it's a reminder to rely on Church teaching and on the saints and also those with experience and knowledge in a particular matter.
I just looked through some old emails, and found one he sent back when:
Quote[Bonaventure],
I will try to call you.
In the meantime, be assured of my prayers for you.
In Christ,
Father Cekada
frcekada@sgg.org
St. Gertrude the Great Church • 4900 Rialto Road
West Chester OH 45069 • 513.645.4212