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To: gzzimlich
its as wrong to say everyone who could possibly be kept alive with parenteral nutrition should get it

In America, parenteral nutrition is ordinary care. If it is withdrawn, the patient does not die from their disease process, they die from dehydration.

The proximate cause of death, to use traditional medical ethics terminology, is dehydration, not the disease process that caused the inability to swallow.

Unless the patient cannot assimilate the fluids and food, even if by tube, it is ordinary care in Christian teaching, not extraordinary.

That may not be the case in certain Third World nations, where parenteral nutrition would be so expensive as to relegate it to extraordinary care due to the burden on the family and/or society.

But in America, today, it is ordinary care according to any orthodox understanding of medical ethics.

That could change in the future, given circumstances that are not unlikely, but at present, there is simply no excuse not to give people food and water, even if "artificially" delivered. A drink of water is a drink of water, food is food, both are basic human rights, regardless of how they are delivered. At least according to orthodox Christian medical ethics.

85 posted on 07/17/2012 8:22:53 AM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp
A lot of people are unaware that feeding tubes have been used for several hundred years. The main difference with today's is that we have synthetic materials that are less likely to cause infection and antibiotics for infections that do develop.
87 posted on 07/17/2012 8:29:43 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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