Sorry, but I'm not going to be threatened or bullied into silence on this issue, by you or anyone else. Six years ago I had to stand by silently while they euthanized a close personal friend with Parkinson's by dehydration. His kind of case is typical of what is occurring in the hospice and palliative care field, I've personally witnessed it, and I'm not going to be silent about it.
Fr. Gerard's Story:I first met Fr. Gerard in 1998 while doing a house call for his mother. A brief initial conversation revealed that he was retired and living in a small apartment only a block from my office, and that we shared many Catholic and pro-life interests. Fr. Gerard soon became a close friend, and we met frequently for meals. I assisted him with various tasks around his apartment, and he called me often simply to talk. He got to know my wife and children well and relied on us for help, as his only sibling lived out of state. Fr. Gerard eventually developed Parkinson's disease. We offered to take him into our home, but knowing the chaos of our homeschooling household he politely declined, and entered a local nursing home. We continued to visit him often and took him out to dine at his favorite restaurants.
In late 2007 and early 2008, Fr. Gerard's health declined rapidly. He left a voice message on my cell phone late on a Wednesday in April 2008, asking me to stop and visit. By the time I was able to visit him two days later, he had been admitted to a local hospital for aspiration pneumonia, and had been diagnosed as "terminal" by the treating physician. He was transferred to the palliative care unit from the ER and the treating physician insisted that according to his Living Will, Fr. Gerard wanted no "extraordinary care" to prolong his life.
I was shocked that he was receiving no water, food or IV, only Morphine by slow IV drip. His Parkinson's was certainly advancing and the aspiration pneumonia was a serious crisis (aspiration pneumonia has a 20 to 60% mortality rate), but food and water did not constitute extraordinary care. We were permitted to wet a sponge to moisten his lips, and he would try to suck all the moisture from the sponge, but we were forbidden to give him a drink of water, because of the "risk of further aspiration pneumonia."
Fr. Gerard had shared with me his opposition to passive euthanasia in the past, and he was trying to talk to me, but he had become so dehydrated that he could not form words. When the attending physician made rounds, I told him my concern that Fr. Gerard was receiving no food or water. The physician asserted that "their hospice rules forbid IVs" as it only "prolonged the process." He then stated, "The public has a misconception that death by dehydration is torturous, but that's not true. It's the most humane way to do this, with the least discomfort. We will control any discomfort with the Morphine. That's what we're going to do."
With that the attending physician, a Catholic father of six, looked me in the eye defiantly, turned on his heels and left. I was speechless. The next day I pleaded with his sibling that Fr. Gerard would never have consented to passive euthanasia by dehydration, explaining that if he died now it would be due to dehydration, not the aspiration pneumonia or the Parkinson's, but to no avail.
I have always been pro-life. I had even attended pro-life conferences about euthanasia and had sat on the medical ethics committees of two hospitals, both in the mid 1990's. I had staff privileges at the hospital in question. But in April 2008, in Fr. Gerard's specific case, I simply did not know what to do. I called four good pro-life priests locally, begging for advice. They all agreed that something must be done but none could offer any specific advice, and because his sibling held power of attorney none could personally intervene to help their fellow priest.
Another priest I consulted recommended I request a medical ethics committee consultation. Late on a Thursday evening, eight days after Fr. Gerard had left the voice message on my cell phone, I spoke with a physician assistant who was on call for the ethics committee. I told her that he was a good priest and a faithful son of the Church who would never agree to being passively euthanized, and I discussed with her the relevant documents from the Vatican, the USCCB and the state bishops' conference. She asked me to enter these documents in Fr. Gerard's chart, and the medical ethics committee would be happy to review the case Friday morning on rounds.
Relieved that there was something I could finally do for this good priest, I went to the hospital Friday morning at 7:00am, asked the unit clerk to formally enter the documents into his chart for the ethics committee consultation, and headed down the hall to visit him.
His room was already empty. Fr. Gerard had died of dehydration several hours earlier.
I do not care to continue this verbal badminton with you any longer.
I am also pro-life, up close and more personal than I care to share in a public forum, and have remained so for 7 decades.
Your condemnation of Catholic Hospice care might appear to some of us to be “Catholic bashing”, because it certainly doesn’t fit my experience (not RCatholic, but Anglican). They were dedicated to keep my husband alive, with me, comfortable, eating and drinking as much as humanly possible.
I sense that you have an agenda, and if so, there is no point in discussing it further. I believe in life, as you do, but we part ways when we get “technical” about how far to go when bodily systems have shut down, when more intervention is only for us, not those we love so much.
You have made your case, and I have made mine. Neither of us know the mind of God, and all any of us can do in our personal decisions is the best we can, given the information we have at the moment.
That, I pray, is all that is expected of us, except the humility to know how much we do not know.
Good night.