Vatican Maintains Stance on Feeding Vegetative Patients

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The debate over the euthanasia of "brain-dead" or comatose patients has stirred emotions on both sides of the issue. Most recently, the highly publicized case of Terry Schiavo, the American woman suffering from brain damage following cardiac arrest, saw her family oppose her husband who wanted to un-tube her after 15 years in vegetative state.

Feeding tubes were eventually removed, and she died of dehydration on March 31, 2005, thirteen days after she was un-tubed.

A patient in a 'permanent vegetative state' is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means," the Vatican said in a statement, quoted by the Associated Press.

A Reuters’ article reports that in an interview with Vatican Radio, the doctrinal department's undersecretary, Father Augustine Di Noia, “rejected arguments that the life of someone in a vegetative state was not worth living and therefore could be ended.”

"Life is a gift from God and the Church has consistently taught that it is a gift that is not subject to the determination and decision, really, of anyone -- including the person himself or herself who is ill," Di Noia also said.

The Catholic Health Association called for careful study of the statement, explained Reuters. It also advised member hospitals to continue providing artificial nutrition and hydration, provided that the benefits outweigh the burdens involved.

The Vatican clarified in a statement:

The Declaration on Euthanasia, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on May 5, 1980, explained the distinction between proportionate and disproportionate means, and between therapeutic treatments and the normal care due to the sick person: "When inevitable death is imminent in spite of the means used, it is permitted in conscience to take the decision to refuse forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life, so long as the normal care due to the sick person in similar cases is not interrupted" (Part IV).

Still less can one interrupt the ordinary means of care for patients who are not facing an imminent death, as is generally the case of those in a "vegetative state"; for these people, it would be precisely the interruption of the ordinary means of care which would be the cause of their death.

Those arguing against unconditional use of feeding tubes, mainly bioethicists, believe that continuing nourishment will keep the bodies of brain-dead patients functioning, although they are effectively dead.

They also believe this to be negative for the patient and family members, causing needless stress along with an extensive financial burden.