In the mid-90s some Texas hospitals adopted a protocol inwhich they arrogated to themselves the right to suspend life-sustaining treatment if they—not the patient or his family or even his insurer—decided it was “futile,” leaving futility to be defined by their internal ethics committees. In 1999 Texas passed a law that gave patients ten days to find an alternative health-care facility for the patient once the hospital determined treatment should be ended.
In practice, it has proven to be nearly impossible for most patients in that situation to find a new hospital in that time and thus a new law was proposed removing the ten-day limit and giving patients as much time as needed to find a new facility.
Opposition from hospitals and insurers was predictable, but would you believe that the law is also being opposed by the Texas Catholic Conference? Instead they support an alternative bill that would extend the limit to 21 days and permit hospitals to refuse new treatments during the waiting period.
Bishop Gregory Aymond of Austin spoke on behalf of his brother bishops in favor of the alternative bill and in opposition to the original.
We believe, and the tradition of our Church has always taught, that a person should be allowed to die with dignity and have a peaceful death. We believe that that is in conformity to God’s will and that God is the one who chooses life and death. It is the teaching of the Church that we should not interfere with that. We also realize that sometimes families, through no fault of their own, are really not able to make those decisions because of their involvement, because of the emotions.
What emotion might that be? Love, perhaps? So if love is the motivation of the patients’ families, what is the motivation of Texas’ hospitals—among which, by the way, are counted Catholic institutions: Money. (In fact, the article’s author, Wesley J. Smith, suspects he hears the footsteps of the Texas Catholic Health Association behind the promotion of a utilitarian approach called the Futile Care Theory.)
I will concede that there may be cases in which the family, against all reason and all hope, insists on indefinite treatment for a loved one with a terminal illness and that treatment will only prolong the suffering of the poor soul.
But which is the more likely circumstance in our society? We live in a culture of death in which human life is devalued and in which life is secondary to monetary and other concerns. Given the possibilities of the two extremes should we not err on the side of being too solicitous toward life?
To whom belongs the decision whether to continue life-sustaining treatment? The patient or his family or bureaucratic and monolithic institutions more concerned with the bottom line?
Near the end of his testimony, Bishop Aymond quoted the 1995 encyclical The Gospel of Life, in which John Paul II stated that in situations “when death is clearly imminent and inevitable, one can certainly in conscience refuse forms of treatment that would only secure precarious prolongation of life, so long as the normal care due to the sick person in similar cases is not interrupted.” But surely, John Paul II was referring to the right under Catholic moral teaching of *patients and families* to choose to forgo treatment — not the right of hospital ethics committee to impose such decisions upon the unwilling.
Of course, it’s not the first time the Texas bishops have waded in on the wrong side of the debate on life-sustaining medical treatment. Back in 1990, Bishop Rene Gracida, then the ordinary of Corpus Christi, took his brother bishops to task for supporting the policy of removing nutrition and hydration (food & water) from seriously ill patients.
Recently the Texas Catholic Conference in Austin released the final text of the document approved by the Texas Catholic Conference of Health Facilities and sixteen of the twenty-one Bishops of Texas. I had declined to sign the document because I consider it to be seriously flawed.
It seems to me that the document gives a higher priority to efforts to relieve the burden caused by a serious illness rather than efforts to protect the sick person’s right to life. The document deals with the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration from a seriously ill patient.
[…]
The inclusion of burdens on “others—family, care provider, or community”—is more broadly stated than in existing Church documents. The Declaration on Euthanasia speaks of the “patient himself” validly making a self-sacrificing decision not to burden other: when those “others” are the agents making the decision, other factors (including the Golden Rule) come into play.
“All” long-term care for seriously impaired patients is a “burden” on the community, but it may be a burden that has to be willingly shouldered: “The respect, the dedication, the time and means required for the care of handicapped persons, even of those whose mental faculties are gravely affected, is the price that a society should generously pay in order to remain truly human” (Document of the Holy See for the International Year of Disabled Persons, 1981.)
[…]
I know of no Church document that says treatment is disproportionate when it involves “inequitable resource allocation.” This could be a broad loophole for communities saying that severely impaired persons are not worth the money.
In the end, Bishop Gracida was proved prescient when Pope John Paul II issued his own document on nutrition and hydration and it was almost word for word what Gracida wrote.
We’ve seen in other cases related to state legislation and Catholic moral teaching that when bishops have compromised on the teaching, that compromise was used as a cudgel in future battles to point out the inconsistencies and claim that Church teaching doesn’t matter to us all that much anyway.
How long before Rome speaks again and contradicts this ill-advised lobbying on behalf of the culture of death? How many times must they be contradicted by Church teaching before they learn?
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Texas bishop on futile care
In the mid-90s some Texas hospitals adopted a protocol inwhich they arrogated to themselves the right to suspend life-sustaining treatment if they—not the patient or his family or even his insurer—decided it was “futile,” leaving futility to be defined by their internal ethics committees. In 1999 Texas passed a law that gave patients ten days to find an alternative health-care facility for the patient once the hospital determined treatment should be ended.
It’s not the first time the Texas bishops have waded in on the wrong side of the debate on life-sustaining medical treatment.
In practice, it has proven to be nearly impossible for most patients in that situation to find a new hospital in that time and thus a new law was proposed removing the ten-day limit and giving patients as much time as needed to find a new facility.
Opposition from hospitals and insurers was predictable, but would you believe that the law is also being opposed by the Texas Catholic Conference? Instead they support an alternative bill that would extend the limit to 21 days and permit hospitals to refuse new treatments during the waiting period.
Bishop Gregory Aymond of Austin spoke on behalf of his brother bishops in favor of the alternative bill and in opposition to the original.
What emotion might that be? Love, perhaps? So if love is the motivation of the patients’ families, what is the motivation of Texas’ hospitals—among which, by the way, are counted Catholic institutions: Money. (In fact, the article’s author, Wesley J. Smith, suspects he hears the footsteps of the Texas Catholic Health Association behind the promotion of a utilitarian approach called the Futile Care Theory.)
The Texas bishops have walked this road before
Technorati Tags: Catholic | bishops | Texas | health care | culture of death | futile care | bioethics |
I will concede that there may be cases in which the family, against all reason and all hope, insists on indefinite treatment for a loved one with a terminal illness and that treatment will only prolong the suffering of the poor soul.
But which is the more likely circumstance in our society? We live in a culture of death in which human life is devalued and in which life is secondary to monetary and other concerns. Given the possibilities of the two extremes should we not err on the side of being too solicitous toward life?
To whom belongs the decision whether to continue life-sustaining treatment? The patient or his family or bureaucratic and monolithic institutions more concerned with the bottom line?
Of course, it’s not the first time the Texas bishops have waded in on the wrong side of the debate on life-sustaining medical treatment. Back in 1990, Bishop Rene Gracida, then the ordinary of Corpus Christi, took his brother bishops to task for supporting the policy of removing nutrition and hydration (food & water) from seriously ill patients.
In the end, Bishop Gracida was proved prescient when Pope John Paul II issued his own document on nutrition and hydration and it was almost word for word what Gracida wrote.
We’ve seen in other cases related to state legislation and Catholic moral teaching that when bishops have compromised on the teaching, that compromise was used as a cudgel in future battles to point out the inconsistencies and claim that Church teaching doesn’t matter to us all that much anyway.
How long before Rome speaks again and contradicts this ill-advised lobbying on behalf of the culture of death? How many times must they be contradicted by Church teaching before they learn?
COMMENTS
Comments are being moderated. After you submit your comment it could take up to a couple hours, but usually only a few minutes, before it will appear. Thank you for your patience. If you have any questions, you may contact Domenico Bettinelli.