What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in
Education?
Toppling
Dominos
Anti-Christians
don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's
Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of
Secularism
"Don't Impose Your
Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death
Warrant?
Court Ordered
Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War
Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for
Catholics in this Election
Christians
Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic
Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay
Marriage
Whose Side are You
on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake
Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields
Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion
Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way,
Baby
The Incarnational
Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told
You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them. How Else
Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be
Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of
Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or
Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But
One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the
Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with
homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality,
and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of
Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well,
Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong
Side
"These are the
Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few
are Married
"...Prepare him for
additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a
Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in
the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a
Person?
The Point of a Point of
View
Politically Correct,
Morally Depraved
Population
Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress
through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for
Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be
schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality
Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass
Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull
the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to
Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal
if...
Get Rid of that Worthless
Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues
Prior to Voting
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by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
Living Will or Death Warrant?
In the wake of the Terri Schiavo case there is much talk about the need for a living will. The subject is more complicated than appears at first sight. Not all living wills are created equal. Here are some considerations for those interested in signing a living will.
There are certain moral elements that are required in every living will. Pope John Paul II said that life is a gift from God. We are not its owners but its responsible administrators. The document should reflect the morality of taking reasonable care of our lives.
One of its essential provisions of a living will should be that nutrition and hydration should never be eliminated unless the body is no longer capable of assimilating food and drink. In this connection Pope John Paul II has taught: “I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory….”
A second statement that should be in every living will is a statement with respect to medication for pain. A possible expression of this might be: “I would like medication to relieve my pain but only to the extent it is known, to a reasonable medical certainty, that it will not shorten my life.” The reason for this is that pain relievers may be given in such excessive doses that they actually cause death. Indeed this may be the aim of the medical personnel who administer it if they deem your life not worth living.
A third part of every living will should be a sentence like this: “I request and direct that medical treatment and care be provided to me to preserve my life without discrimination based on my age or physical or mental disability or the ‘quality’ of my life. I reject any action or omission that is intended to cause or hasten my death.” There should always be a bias toward life.
Many who have signed living will instruments have unknowingly chosen death. If a living will contains a provision to “avoid extraordinary measures” this may be interpreted to mean not using a feeding tube. Some living wills have “Do Not Resuscitate” clauses if recovery of consciousness would leave the patient in a deteriorated condition. These are dangerous because a doctor might fail to resuscitate someone who would be confined to a wheelchair afterward even though in every other respect the patient would lead a normal life.
There are other words and phrases that should be avoided in a living will because of the possibility of misinterpretation. Here is a short list:
Artificial means: These may include food and water, the most basic necessities of life. There is nothing artificial about food and water. There is nothing wrong with being artificial. The word means “made by human skill and labor.” Why should we not use human talents to preserve God’s precious gift of life? Anybody who brings up an infant uses artificial nutrition and hydration if a spoon is used to introduce food into the child. Providing food and water through a nasogastric tube is not an artificial life-sustaining treatment. Removing the tube results in death from dehydration and starvation and is not natural or humane.
Benefit: Someone may decide that ultimate benefit for you is death by euthanasia. Benefit can be used as a substitute for quality of life.
Brain death: The definition of death used to be cardiopulmonary arrest. Death ought not to be declared unless and until there is destruction of the entire brain and of the respiratory and circulatory systems as well.
Care appropriate to my condition: Who makes the judgment as to what is appropriate? Some may judge the treatment appropriate according to your “quality of life,” the number of your birthdays, the thickness of your wallet, or the extent of your insurance coverage.
CPR: If you would like cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in some but not all circumstances when you are terminally ill, you need to be specific. You might write, “No CPR if cardiopulmonary arrest has been caused by my terminal illness or a complication of it.” That means that you would still get CPR if you are a victim of smoke inhalation as in a fire.
Does not offer a reasonable hope of benefit: Someone may interpret this to mean that you do not wish to be resuscitated if you would have to live with some disability.
Excessive pain, expense or other excessive burden: The meaning of these things may be different from what you intend.
Extraordinary treatment: Some may regard a feeding tube as extraordinary. “Extraordinary” is a slippery word.
Futile treatment: The more frequent situation is not futile treatment but being denied vital care.
Heroic measures: What are these? Heroic could vary in meaning according to which hero applied the treatment. What is now considered heroic might become commonplace in the lifetime of the one who signs a living will
Hopelessly ill: Hopelessness cannot be known with certainty. Many persons are still alive after being given six months to live.
Incurable condition/irreversible coma: Who makes this judgment? Some people after many years do sometimes awake from a coma.
Inevitable and imminent death: Death is always inevitable because we are born with a terminal condition. Always state parameters such as “within 24 hours.” Without such specification “imminent” is meaningless.
Life-sustaining treatment: Rejecting life-sustaining treatment can mean that food and water can be withdrawn and therefore death to those with living wills.
Natural death/prolong dying: The only unnatural death is murder, such as euthanasia and suicide (self-murder). Prolonging dying is the central mission of medicine.
Reasonable hope: Who determines this?
Respirator: The term “respirator” gives the impression that it is the machine and not the patient that is doing the breathing. Some people refer to persons on a respirator as “oxygenated corpses” as if the truly dead could breathe.
Terminal illness: This is so medically inexact as to be meaningless. Man is terminal from conception.
Living wills have failed practically and morally. There are several living will types with which I am familiar: The Living Will, The Christian Affirmation of Life, and the Five Wishes. None of these possesses all the moral requirements of a living will: a bias toward life irrespective of the quality of that life, an insistence on nutrition and hydration until these become impossible, provisions against deliberately hastening the dying process, and unambiguous language. There is only one with which I am acquainted that meets all the qualities and still leaves room for the patient’s wishes in special considerations and that is The Will to Live. The form tailored for the State of Texas can be obtained from
Will to Live Project
512 10th Street NW
Washington, DC 20004
It is also available on the web at http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/willtolive/StatesList.html. On that page click on Texas and the Texas Will to Live Form will be available in pdf format which may be downloaded or printed.
Paul said, “For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Rom. 14:8) So in preparing for death keep his law in mind especially since you will meet him immediately after death.
(Published May, 2005)
