I'm not sure I can articulate the difference --- anyone who can, should jump in and explain better.
I'll try. It's because every person alive needs food and water "with assistance" so to speak, whether that assistance means, cooking, suckling an infant, spoon-feeding, straw-feeding, tube-feeding, hydration via IV. Another way to put it is, all food is both an absolute survival requirement and a "human solidarity activity" and all intentional cessation of food/fluids will cause death by starvation/dehydration.
That's why denying food with the intention of causing or speeding-up death, is wrong. Even for a dying or severely disabled person, food is not "treatment", even if it's by tube. It's "ordinary care."
(Only exception of a dying person simply can't tolerate food/fluids anymore.) OTOH, even though respiration is also essential for survival, it is not inherently an "assisted activity." If a person can't breathe on their own, a ventilator is always a special intervention. If the person is in such a state that it's futile, removing it is not murder.
It could get more dicey in individual cases, but I think there really is a distinction between "assisted feeding" and "assisted breathing."
Does that make sense?
(Only exception IS IF a dying person simply can't tolerate food/fluids anymore.)
Does that make sense?
Thank you, dear Mrs. Don-o. Makes not only total sense, but perfect sense.
“Removing a ventilator is not euthanasia. “
It is if the person cannot breathe on their own.
And as I said in response to post 5, plenty of comatose people can’t breathe on their own either.
My mother-in-law had a heart transplant years ago. Needless to say, she was in and out of various hospitals for years following. At one point, she was comatose for weeks and declared “brain dead.” My wife’s father and my wife got into a huge argument over end-of-life measures. We all agreed about removing the ventilator, but he wanted to remove her intravenous medication.
In her case, my wife and I considered the ventilator as mechanical life extension, while the medication was normal treatment in her case. (The drug regimen of transplant patients is necessary for life). After a heated, messy battle with her omniscient doctors, we convinced everyone to remove her vent, but continue her meds.
She awoke and began speaking the next morning. Over the next few weeks she made a full recovery, appointed my wife her medical and legal proxy, and moved across the country after her husband initiated divorce proceedings.
According to her treatment team at a very prestigious Southern California medical centers, she had been dead for weeks. Had they withdrawn her medications, their incorrect diagnosis would have proven fatal. It’s the same with food and hydration. Everyone’s life depends on food and water.