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Euthanasia by Omission
Sunday, April 3rd, 2005 10:29 amI don't like what the Pope stood for, and I don't especially grieve for him. I do feel a certain respect for the serenity and dignity with which he lived his last days.
He didn't wish to be readmitted to hospital to be kept alive for longer, and that wish was respected. (If this had been the case with my father, he'd have been dead for over two years). Yet he was also strongly in favour of preserving life at all costs. Hypocrisy? He apparently made a distinction between sustaining life via feeding tubes, and medical intervention.
There's quite a good discussion of it on the BBC news page, though I notice this story is no longer linked from the Pope-page:
Speaking about the treatment of patients in a persistent vegetative state, he said that artificial feeding was "morally obligatory". Furthermore, he warned doctors, the removal of feeding tubes would be "euthanasia by omission".
He didn't wish to be readmitted to hospital to be kept alive for longer, and that wish was respected. (If this had been the case with my father, he'd have been dead for over two years). Yet he was also strongly in favour of preserving life at all costs. Hypocrisy? He apparently made a distinction between sustaining life via feeding tubes, and medical intervention.
There's quite a good discussion of it on the BBC news page, though I notice this story is no longer linked from the Pope-page:
Speaking about the treatment of patients in a persistent vegetative state, he said that artificial feeding was "morally obligatory". Furthermore, he warned doctors, the removal of feeding tubes would be "euthanasia by omission".
