Posted on 10/31/2009 4:31:41 PM PDT by wagglebee
WASHINGTON A proposed revision to the directives that guide Catholic heath care facilities would clarify that patients with chronic conditions who are not imminently dying should receive food and water by medically assisted means if they cannot take them normally.
As a general rule, there is an obligation to provide patients with food and water, including medically assisted nutrition and hydration for those who cannot take food orally, says the revised text of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services proposed by the U.S. bishops Committee on Doctrine.
This obligation extends to patients in chronic conditions (e.g., the persistent vegetative state) who can reasonably be expected to live indefinitely if given such care, the new text adds.
Deleted from the directives would be a reference to the necessary distinctions between questions already resolved by the magisterium and those requiring further reflection, as, for example, the morality of withdrawing medically assisted hydration and nutrition from a person who is in the condition that is recognized by physicians as the persistent vegetative state.
The proposed revision to the directives will come before members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for debate and vote at their fall general assembly Nov. 16-19 in Baltimore. A majority vote by those present and voting is required for passage.
In an introduction to the revised text, Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., chairman of the doctrine committee, said the directives, last revised in 2001, were written long before Pope John Paul IIs March 2004 address to an international conference on Life-Sustaining Treatments and the Vegetative State and the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faiths August 2007 reply to questions raised by the USCCB on artificial nutrition and hydration.
The current directives based their teaching on documents by some state Catholic conferences, individual bishops and the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, the bishop noted.
Bishop Lori said the changes were needed particularly since the recent clarifications by the Holy See have rendered untenable certain positions that have been defended by some Catholic ethicists.
Much of the ethical discussion of the nutrition and hydration question in recent years has focused on the case of Terri Schindler Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman whose husband successfully fought for the right to discontinue her feeding tube. Schiavo died March 31, 2005, 13 days after doctors withdrew nutrition and hydration.
Some Catholic ethicists had argued that, because doctors consider a persistent vegetative state irreversible, artificial nutrition and hydration can be withdrawn from those patients.
While medically assisted nutrition and hydration are not morally obligatory in certain cases, these forms of basic care should in principle be provided to all patients who need them, including patients diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, because even the most severely debilitated and helpless patient retains the full dignity of a human person, the proposed revised directives read.
Medically assisted nutrition and hydration become morally optional when they cannot reasonably be expected to prolong life or when they would be excessively burdensome for the patient or (would) cause significant physical discomfort, they add. For instance, as a patient draws close to inevitable death from an underlying progressive and fatal condition, certain measures to provide nutrition and hydration may become excessively burdensome and therefore not obligatory in light of their very limited ability to prolong life or provide comfort.
The proposed wording also would delete a reference to hydration and nutrition not being morally obligatory when they cannot be assimilated by a persons body, replacing it with the significant physical discomfort language.
The revision was drawn up in collaboration with the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities and in consultation with the Task Force on Health Care Issues, Catholic Health Association, Catholic Medical Association, National Catholic Bioethics Center and National Catholic Partnership on Disability, Bishop Lori said.
Thanks for the ping!
Still freepers who don’t know FR is pro-life. Pretty tasteless and wrong, aren’t they?
I attack them whenever they spring up, but they keep reappearing!
Confirmation that PAULA DOCKERY, who is running for Fla Governor as a "pro-life" republican, voted with the deceased Jim King back in 2005 in exchange for rail thru Lakeland that has now fallen through. Terri may be dead over some railroad tracks. Terri's father is deceased now too. That's 1. Terri-killed 2. Jim King - cancer last year 3. Bob Schindler, Sr. (cardiac arrest) this year
Thanks for nothing, Paula, fake pro-lifer (like CRIST) and you didn't get your rail either.
Campaigning for Paula Dockery at Free Republic would not be such a great idea since this is a pro-life web site.
Here's just one link: http://www.righttrackflorida.org/news/articles/how-sunrail-failed-gripes-grudges-and-paula-dockerys-gift-to-senators
Paula D. wants to be Fla's next governor. We already have a useless rino governor. Thanks, FV
The Republican state senators who banded together in 2005 to help defeat legislation in the Terri Schiavo affair largely stuck together Wednesday in voting down an ultrasound abortion measure on a 20-20 vote that they said was too much government.
Of the Schiavo Nine, only Sen. J.D. Alexander of Lake Wales voted for the legislation. Sen. Nancy Argenziano is gone. The rest of the Schiavo Nine: Lisa Carlton of Osprey; Mike Bennett of Bradenton; Paula Dockery of Lakeland; Evelyn Lynn of Ormond Beach; Sen. Dennis Jones, R-Seminole; Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville; and Burt Saunders, R-Naples.
The reward for the Schiavo vote: An Old-West style flier activists circulated that said "Wanted the Republican 9." As then, the de facto leader was former Senate President King as we told you about here.
Other votes of note: Sen. Gary Siplin or Orlando was the only D in favor. Sen. Mandy Dawson actually made it for a vote. And Sen. Jeff Atwater of North Palm Beach voted yes, despite much chatter that he couldn't afford a hardline conservative vote while running for re-election in his D-leaning district.
Remember we knew that someday we’d start to find out why people (Republicans) voted to kill Terri. It is trickling out. We may not find out everyone’s motive but isn’t the promise of a railroad track for Paula Dockery worth the sacrifice of a useless eater?
I think the story I just posted was from April 2008.
Ultrasound Seven wouldn’t visit Terri to see how very much alive she was - especially when she found out they were going to kill her and she screamed for her life on 3-18-05.
Nancy A. is the head of the Public Service Commission. She sucks at that too. She got her feelings hurt when her office got calls that she was a murderer. Well, if the shoe fits, ladies... imagine these high heeled dames voting to kill an innocent human being.
How ironic that Terri got what they got at Auschwitz. Auschwitz victims were taken there by rail. Dockery voted against Terri for rail.
December 3, 2009 (Message from Terri's Foundation)
Thread by annalex.
November 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Supporters of Linda Gibbons are disseminating the following information to encourage support for the Canadian pro-life sidewalk counsellor:
Linda Gibbons has been a common criminal for many years now. For fifteen years, since 1994, this grandmother has been in and out of Ontario prisons. Her totally accumulated jail time is seven years. What is her crime? Linda prayerfully and quietly witnesses in front of Ontario abortion clinics, in violation of an unjust "bubble zone" law.
This past session has been particularly onerous - she has been behind bars since last January, and this will be her second consecutive Christmas in jail.
Please consider sending Linda a Christmas card this year. She will be encouraged and uplifted by your thoughtfulness. To maximize the effectiveness of this initiative, why not talk to your pastor and see if you can put this message in your church bulletin? Why not pass this message along to family and friends?
Her address is:
Attention: Linda Gibbons
Vanier Center for Women
655 Martin Street, Box 1040,
Milton, Ontario
L9T 5E6, Canada
There are some mailing guidelines because the Detention Centre mailing department reads everything sent to the inmates:
1. Don't use stickers (address, return address, pro-life) on the envelope or card.
2. Don't send any laminated cards, bookmarks, prayer cards, pro-life pamphlets. Non-laminated items will get to her.
3. Don't ask direct questions about daily activity of the detention centre.
4. Put your address directly in the card or letter. (Sometimes the mail sorter keeps the envelope and Linda feels badly if she can't write back.)
5. If you would like to send a little monetary gift to Linda it must be a money order made out to Linda Gibbons. The detention centre will deposit the money directly to her account. She uses any donations for envelopes and stamps.
6. Many people add a variety of Christian reading material in their mailings to her. She often shares articles with others in the Centre. She can receive pro-life material that show the development of the baby but not post abortion photos. She can't receive books. Try to stick to one or two pages of reading materials or pamphlets.
Threads by marcbold and me.
Northland Family Planning Centers of Michigan are advertising their services with newly created videos which calls abortion "sacred work."
Sacred? Sacred is defined as "entitled to veneration or religious respect by association with divinity or divine things; holy."
The video is part of a series of videos highlighting their abortion services and states, "We believe in the goodness of our work." The spokesperson points to a sign hanging in the abortion clinic that says "We do sacred work that honors women and the circle of life and death. When you come here bring only love."
The clinic says that abortion while being a "normal experience" and sadly that is true as there have been over 45 million abortions since its legalization as the video points out. But the spokesperson goes further and says that abortion is also "a sign of strength courage and responsibility to thoughtfully consider whether or not to bring new life into the world."
The video highlights a quote from murdered late term abortionist Dr. George Tiller and showcases it against a pink backdrop with a heart behind it while a soft piano plays in the background. Tiller's quote is: Abortion is not a cerebral or reproductive issue. Abortion is a matter of the heart. For until one understands the heart of a woman, nothing else about abortion makes any sense at all. Dr. George Tiller 1941-2009
The clinic's spokesperson assures women, "We believe you are making your decision from a place of goodness" and reminds them that "Goodness is not perfection, not obedience and it is not martyrdom. There is not one way of living a good life and sometimes we have to make hard choices."
The video is below:
(Excerpt) Read more at creativeminorityreport.com ...
______________________________________________________________
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- During the rally yesterday sponsored by the Planned Parenthood abortion business and other leading pro-abortion groups, Rev. Carlton Veazy told the small gathering of hardcore activists that abortion is a "God-given right." Veazy is the head of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
The rally was a time for abortion advocates to rally together to press for taxpayer funding of abortions and saw a small crowd of just a few hundred people -- compared to the 100,000 or more who attend the March for Life.
Veazy was the closing speaker for the Stop Stupak rally and he told the activists they had more than merely a so-called constitutional right to an abortion.
Don't let anybody tell you that religious people don't support choice, Veazy said, according to CNS News. You not only have a constitutional right for abortion, but you have a God-given right.
Veazy went as far as calling on the abortion advocates to take on the nation's Catholic bishops, who have pressed for removing the abortion funding from the congressional health care bills.
We are also here to call out the U.S. Conference of [Catholic] Bishops, because no one religion, no theological perspective should get the kind of weight that they can [to] put pressure on the Congress, he said, according to CNS.
Hold the whole Congress up and say, If we don't get our way, we will work against health reform, said Veazy. We in the religious community resent that. We believe that no religion should carry that kind of weight in legislation.
The "God-given rights" comment is already drawing guffaws across the Internet, but it comes as no shock to longtime pro-life advocates.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice such denominations as the United Methodist Church, Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ that had promoted abortion for decades.
Veazy himself has not only sponsored letters calling for forcing taxpayers to fund abortions, but his pro-abortion position is so extreme that he criticized pro-abortion President Barack Obama for supposedly seeking common ground on abortion.
Even though Obama has crafted a staunchly pro-abortion record as president, for abortion advocates like Veazy, there can never been common ground on abortion because it should be an unfettered right.
"My experience of 13 years in the pro-choice movement is that 'common ground' has become another term for compromise on reproductive choice," he wrote in an editorial at a pro-abortion blog in May. "In other words, achieving common ground will be accomplished by diminishing the ability of women to make decisions about abortion, whatever the personal cost. That's unacceptable."
"It's unacceptable for even one woman to suffer in order for opponents of abortion to be appeased," he claimed.
Bless, her hearts, the Canadians are more cruel than the American people.
Thanks for the ping!
Happy birthday Terri.
Hope Terri’s dear Mother, Mary, sees how very much we all still
mourn her precious daughter!!
What a privilege to have fought for her life.
Forgive us, Lord, that we did not prevail.
Terri’s Birthday bttt.
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