Are feeding tubes Ordinary or Extraordinary treatment?

[Bonaventure]

It 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.

[Baylee]

It 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.

[awkward customer]

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.

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?

[awkward customer]

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

[queen.saints]

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.

[queen.saints]

Yes, even Fr. Cekada never made such a claim.

So that leaves no priests living or dead who agree with you.

[awkward customer]

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.

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?

[awkward customer]

Yes, 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.

[awkward customer]

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.

[Baylee]

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/

[queen.saints]

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

[awkward customer]

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/

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.

[queen.saints]

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"