Texas Catholic Bishops Endorse Utilitarian Futile Care Theory

LifeSiteNews ^ | 5/3/07 | Hilary White

[wagglebee]

AUSTIN, May 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Catholic Bishops of Texas have endorsed a utilitarian theory that allows doctors and hospital bioethics committees to refuse life-saving treatments to patients who need and request them.

Renowned lawyer and bioethics critic Wesley J. Smith has slammed the Texas Catholic Conference for opposing a bill that would allow patients an extra ten days to find alternate care facilities for patients who have been refused care on utilitarian grounds.

A 1999 Texas law allows doctors and hospital ethics committees to refuse life-saving treatment even if a patient or family specifically requests it. Under the law, Patients’ families who have received notice that life-saving treatment will not be offered have ten days to find alternate care facilities.

Texas Catholic Conference spokesman, Bishop Gregory Aymond of the Diocese of Austin, said to the House Committee on Public Health, “the tradition of our Church has always taught, that a person should be allowed to die with dignity and have a peaceful death.”

Smith writes that the bishops have missed the point and are endorsing a utilitarian principle that has endangered the lives of patients.

Bill HB 1094 would change the 10-day window to 21 days. It would, however, allow hospitals to refuse new forms of treatment that might be needed during the waiting period. The statute would remain in place that says, “The physician and health care facility are not obligated to provide life-sustaining treatment.”

Bishop Aymond testified, “We believe that that is in conformity to God's will and that God is the one who chooses life and death. It is the teaching of the Church that we should not interfere with that. We also realize that sometimes families, through no fault of their own, are really not able to make those decisions because of their involvement, because of the emotions.”

Smith responded to Bishop Aymond, saying, “This is little different than utilitarian bioethicists claiming that families shouldn't be able to make such decisions because of the guilt they feel or misplaced religious belief.”

The bishops, says Smith, have confused the legitimate option for a patient to refuse unnecessary treatment, with an existing law that allows hospitals to threaten the well-being of patients and impose the subjective opinion that a patient is not worth saving. 
 
According to futile care theory the decision whether to treat is left to the doctor or bioethics committee who decide if a given treatment is worth the effort, based on the patient’s likelihood of recovery or “quality of life” issues. Elderly or brain damaged patients, Smith writes, are increasingly being refused ordinary care, such as antibiotics for infections, based on determinations of “medical futility.”

Read Bishop Aymond’s statement:
http://www.txcatholic.org/testimony-on-hb-3474.html

To respectfully express concerns to the Texas Catholic Conference:
1625 Rutherford Lane, Building D 
Austin, Texas, USA 
78754 

Phone: 512-339-9882 
Fax: 512-339-8670

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Alert Woman Threatened With Death After Houston Hospital Votes to Remove Life Support
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/apr/06042508.html

[wagglebee]

The bishops, says Smith, have confused the legitimate option for a patient to refuse unnecessary treatment, with an existing law that allows hospitals to threaten the well-being of patients and impose the subjective opinion that a patient is not worth saving.

The Vatican needs to removed these bishops immediately!

[wagglebee]

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[BykrBayb]

Why does the Vatican allow bishops to promote policies that are in direct violation of Church doctrine? Where does the Vatican draw the line? If these bishops were instructing Catholics to kneel on prayer rugs facing Mecca while they pray to Allah, would that be enough for a reprimand?

[wagglebee]

I don’t know what the reluctance is on the part of the Vatican to keep bishops and priests in line. If I was the pope, these guys wouldn’t even be given the opportunity to explain themselves, they would be gone the moment I read the news.

[gpapa]

For details on this issue and more see “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, Fourth Edition”:http://www.usccb.org/bishops/directives.shtml#partfive

[gpapa]

The Bishops' view is not nessarily inconsistent with the view of the Vatican. Pope John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical, The Gospel of Life wrote:

Euthanasia must be distinguished from the decision to forego so called ‘aggressive medical treatment,’ in other words, medical procedures which no longer correspond to the real situation of the patient, either because they are by now disproportionate to any expected results or because they impose an excessive burden on the patient and his family.” He says, “In such situations when death is clearly imminent and inevitable, one can certainly in conscience ‘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.

Pope John Paul II writings on the matter is compatible with with Pope Paul VI wrote in a declaration in 1978:

Furthermore, the doctor is called to attend the patient not only with scientific competence but also with love and respect. Frequently he will be called to help him to make decisions, serious ones at times. These decisions must not be based on emotional grounds but on objective criteria; they must keep in mind the Church’s teaching, which the doctor should therefore study with attention. In this respect it may be well to recall the teaching of Catholic doctrine concerning the duty of the doctor to make use of all the means at his disposal in his concrete situation in order to save human life. Although the patient can refuse the therapeutic means classified as “extraordinary”, especially when there is no hope of improving his condition, he may not reject the ordinary means and the basic services that society and medical science should place at the disposal of all.

[wagglebee]

The Bishops' view is not nessarily inconsistent with the view of the Vatican.

That is an extreme understatement, it is decidedly at odds with all Church teaching on the matter.

[bjs1779]

Sounds like the gates of hell is getting wider all the time, imo.

[wagglebee]

Yep.

[gpapa]

I too am not happy with the Bishops’ position on the matter. I am more conservative than most fellow Catholics I have met on life and death issues, that is for sure. I guess I do not understand the full implications of the Texas law. I was only pointing out the UCCB’s and Vatican’s general view on care for the dying.

I and my brother were faced with a similar but not as difficult a case when our mother died in August of 2004. She was in the hospital for two weeks with multiple diagnosed problems due to her advanced age. After the second week she became delirious for two days, yelling at times that she wished to die, and during that time we consulted with the doctors again as to her condition. They indicated there was nothing more we could do for her in a clinical setting. On the night of the second day of her delirium she became quiet which continued for two days until her death on the second night. During those four tortuous days she was being given oxygen and nutrition via an IV. My brother, who is a Dentist BTW, chose not to remove those supports for her well being and she died a natural death peacefully on the fourth night. We were confident at that point she had gone to meet her Savior at the gates of Heaven, and to be reunited with her husband who passed away in 1990.

[NYer]

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[the invisib1e hand]

maybe they’ll merge with the Diocese of St. Petersburg, FL.

[darkangel82]

I don’t understand it either, but I’m not Catholic.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Why does the Vatican allow bishops to promote policies that are in direct violation of Church doctrine? Where does the Vatican draw the line?

That's easy: Biblical literalism.

[Young Scholar]

Avoid a knee-jerk reaction to this. Here a group of bishops (who are most likely pro-life) have recognized that medical technology is reaching the point where we can, at enormous expense, artificially prolong people’s lives in what usually amounts to a futile effort.

Just because we have a technology does not mean we should use it in every case, and this is especially true when those using it are not paying for it (I suspect that if the patient’s family were willing to pay for life-prolonging treatment, the hospital would have no problem providing it, but we should not expect the hospital or others to pay for something that is almost certainly futile).

[bjs1779]

maybe they’ll merge with the Diocese of St. Petersburg, FL.

Or maybe even the Scientologists, which is close by.

[bjs1779]

Avoid a knee-jerk reaction to this. Here a group of bishops (who are most likely pro-life) have recognized that medical technology is reaching the point where we can, at enormous expense,

I don't know for sure about that. Bishop Lynch didn't particularly stick up for Terri Schiavo either. Her bill for the feeding tube was 8 dollars per day in a private setting. Would that be considered to enormous for you?