Good questions. Most cases are handled quietly between family and doctor.
Our local newspaper has headlined for a couple of days now families faced with similar decisions and what they did and why.
It's an intensely personal decision for a family and their stories have been gut wrenching and never easily made.
The Wolson Report submitted to Jeb Bush, which was formatted into HTML tonight, makes extensive mention of this matter with the full understanding that there are slippery slopes in both directions.
A national conversation will result from this and that's a good thing. I had not realized until earlier in the week that people did not understand that a huge number of people are taken off feeding tubes in this country in hospitals and nursing homes every day of the week. So people need to pay more attention to the various kinds of life support including feeding tubes.
For those interested, this is the official position of the Unitd States Conference of Catholic Bishops. There are a great many instances, including Terri's, where death by starvation is permitted within church doctrine.
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/euthanas/nutqa.htm
I understand the Vatican has released a different statement and one would hope there would be some commonality between them but if there is, I haven't seen it.
wrong.
New York Post --
VATICAN RIPS TUBE REMOVAL AS 'DEATH PENALTY'
March 23, 2005 -- VATICAN CITY — The Vatican pressed its campaign to keep Terri Schiavo alive yesterday, saying that removing the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube amounted to capital punishment for someone who has committed no crime. In a front-page editorial, the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, criticized federal Judge James Whittemore's refusal to order the reinsertion of Schiavo's feeding tube and disparaged a "society incapable of appreciating and defending the gift of life."
It said Whittemore had condemned Schiavo to an "atrocious death: death from hunger and thirst."
"After all, Terri's destiny appears not unlike that of many men and women who in the United States get capital punishment for their crimes," the paper said.
"But Terri has committed no crimes, if not that of being 'useless' to the eyes of a society incapable of appreciating and defending the gift of life. Of any life." The Holy See has maintained that there is virtually no justification for the death penalty.
The decision by Whittemore came after feverish action by President Bush and Congress to pass legislation allowing the brain-damaged woman's contentious case to be reviewed by federal courts.
"She has no possibility of being 'restored' to a 'normal' life. Therefore Terri Schiavo must die," the L'Osservatore editorial said in its interpretation of the judge's ruling. "This is . . . the absurd and terrifying reason" for Whittemore's decision.
The feeding tube was disconnected Friday on orders of a state judge, prompting an extraordinary weekend effort by congressional Republicans to push through unprecedented emergency legislation Monday aimed at keeping her alive.
A top Vatican official, Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, also criticized the ruling, saying it legitimized a "cruel" death by hunger and thirst for Schiavo.
But experts say if she dies from the removal of her feeding tube, her passing should be peaceful.
AP --------------------------------------------------- Vatican denounces Schiavo ordeal
From correspondents in Vatican City
March 24, 2005
COMPARING the case to Jesus Christ's Way of the Cross, the Vatican today denounced a US court decision to let a severely brain-damaged woman die as a new painful step in her ordeal.
The statement, in the Vatican's Osservatore Romano daily, came after a federal appeals court turned down early today an emergency request by the parents of Terri Schiavo to have her feeding tube reinserted. "A new painful 'station' of the personal calvary of Terri Schiavo was written today" by the court, the daily wrote today.
On Easter Friday, Christians take part in the Way of the Cross which commemorates the steps or "stations" of the suffering and death of Jesus.
"Unfortunately, until now Terri Schiavo has met several torturers on her painful journey: from those who first decided that she should die to the judges who signed her sentence," the Osservatore stated. The newspaper had compared Mrs Schiavo's "agony" to the "agony of humanity" in an article Monday.
Doctors estimate Mrs Schiavo's time of survival since her feeding tube was disconnected on Friday at two weeks. She has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years since heart failure caused severe brain damage.
Michael Schiavo, her husband, has said she should be allowed to die and that she had expressed such a wish in the past. Her parents have for seven years fought efforts to remove her from life support, insisting she can get better.
Doctors have repeatedly said in court that Mrs Schiavo has virtually no chance of recovery.
The Vatican daily said the court decision went against the views of a large section of US public opinion as well as that of US President George W. Bush, who expressed his disappointment at the court's ruling. "In the meantime, unaware of the fuss surrounding her case, Terri is dying, in silence," the newspaper wrote.
Bears repeating.
A national conversation will result from this and that's a good thing.
No unless people get a grip on themselves and their emotions so they can focus on the larger issues.
You are wrong. The Bishop's conclude that it is not acceptable to withdraw Food and Nutrition in someone in Terri's condition. Also recent statements by Pope John PaulII and Vatican clergy clarify Church teaching on this matter. Below is a statement from the USCCB website you cited.
In light of these concerns, it is our considered judgment that while legitimate Catholic moral debate continues, decisions about these patients should be guided by a presumption in favor of medically assisted nutrition and hydration. A decision to discontinue such measures should be made in light of a careful assessment of the burdens and benefits of nutrition and hydration for the individual patient and his or her family and community. Such measures must not be withdrawn in order to cause death, but they may be withdrawn if they offer no reasonable hope of sustaining life or pose excessive risks or burdens. We also believe that social and health care policies should be carefully framed so that these patients are not routinely classified as "terminal" or as prime candidates for the discontinuance of even minimal means of life support.
When a patient is not competent to make his or her own decisions, a proxy decisionmaker who shares the patient's moral convictions, such as a family member or guardian, may be designated to represent the patient's interests and interpret his or her wishes. Here, too, moral limits remain relevant -- that is, morally the proxy may not deliberately cause a patient's death or refuse what is clearly ordinary means, even if he or she believes the patient would have made such a decision.http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/euthanas/nutqa.htm
You are misrepresenting the Church's doctrine that you link to. The Catholic Church does not teach that it is ever permissible to starve someone to death because they have low quality of life.
You are confusing Terri's case with that of someone who is terminally ill, and for whom consuming food can only heighten excruciating pain. The two cases are very different.