Palliative Care or Monstrous Barbarism?

I've written before about the new approach to palliative care. It used to mean keeping a patient comfortable and providing them all they needed to end their life naturally without suffering. But today, palliative care is just as likely, perhaps even more likely, to mean starving and dehydrating someone to death while drugging them so the "caregiver" can pretend the victim isn't suffering. But now the Josef Mengeles working in some hospices want to take the step a little further. They want to study their victims while they kill them.

Writing at his blog on the First Things website, Wesley Smith tells us, It Takes a Long Time to Starve a Severely Disabled Infant to Death by Withdrawing Medically-Supplied Nutrition. Reporting on material presented at the 18th International Congress on Palliative Care he shared the participants' findings on removing "artificial" nutrition and hydration (presumably tube feeding) from sick infants. Hal Siden, MD, from Canuck Place Children’s Hospice in Vancouver, British Columbia presented a case series showing that some infants can live much longer than expected - almost a month after food and hydration are removed:

Extreme Cases Make Bad Law

An English stroke victim, Tony Nicklinson, is fighting for the right to have his wife kill him with a lethal injection. He says he has no quality of life and wants to be dead, but as a stroke victim in "locked in" state, he cannot do anything for himself. He cannot kill himself or even participate in his own suicide. He needs to be directly killed. He is challenging the law to make it possible, seeking the assurance that his wife will not be charged with murder. The irony of the news story below is its ending, where the reporter talks about death releasing Tony from a "living hell." But what if the "release" results in his plunging into eternal hell, the unquenchable fire?  Is it worth trading 20 years of suffering for an eternity's worth?

 

We do not belong to ourselves; we belong to God. Suffering has value. My own brother (55) who suffered a debilitating stroke last summer and has also contracted a seriously debilitating condition called recurring transverse mylitis also has limited quality of life. But rather than focusing on his own suffering, John has been offering his suffering for others and praying and keeping his sense of humor. Granted, his condition is less severe, but terrible nonetheless.

The worst scenario will be the result if the Nicklinsons are successful in changing the law. Every handicapped individual will be at the mercy of caregivers who may believe they are better off dead. Legalizing the murder of Tony Nicklinson would endanger millions of sick and suffering people. Look at the euthanasia laws in the Netherlands where people are being offed without their consent. Will England be next?

The Latest on Eluana

Italian Senate tries to halt mercy killing

Political struggle over coma patient Eluana

For a comparison of Eluana and Terri Schiavo see my post at The Catholic Guys.