Have we gone too far....?

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Texan_in_DC

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Our Church is Pro Life, active Catholics are Pro Life, I am Pro Life.

My question is does Pro Life mean we are open to death?

I say yes, and my other question is have we gone too far in protecting life, or keeping life alive.

example 2000 years ago if someone was in a vegative state, or horrible medical condition, no electricity, no way to keep body alive by machine or even feeding tube.

So today if I were in an accident and I decide to have a machine set up to breath for me, or a tube installed to feed me, have we already gone too far?
 
Texan in DC:
Our Church is Pro Life, active Catholics are Pro Life, I am Pro Life.

My question is does Pro Life mean we are open to death?

I say yes, and my other question is have we gone too far in protecting life, or keeping life alive.

example 2000 years ago if someone was in a vegative state, or horrible medical condition, no electricity, no way to keep body alive by machine or even feeding tube.

So today if I were in an accident and I decide to have a machine set up to breath for me, or a tube installed to feed me, have we already gone too far?
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Its a good question. If a machine is breathing for you, I believe that the Church considers this to be “extraordinary means.” If the only thing keeping you alive is a machine that can be switched off, then there is no sin in “throwing the switch.”

John Paul II argued that a feeding tube is a different situation. I think the difference, in the case of Schiavo, was that she was literally starved to death. Feeding someone is not an artificial method of keeping someone alive–not extraordinary means.
 
Texan in DC:
So today if I were in an accident and I decide to have a machine set up to breath for me, or a tube installed to feed me, have we already gone too far?
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Machine breathing is extraordinary and not required. Food is required and rightly so. What would you think if I had an elderly relative with alzheimer’s under my care, but refused to feed him so I could profit from the will sooner?

There is nothing different from this and Schiavo’s situation.
 
Not only are we not compelled to use extraordinary means to stay alive or keep someone else alive, we are also not compelled to engage in treatment if we have a terminal illness such as some cancers. We are allowed to let the natural course of events take place. We are also allowed to use the death penalty in extraordinary circumstances. Such circumstances rarely, if ever, exist in the industrialized world. The point is that it is not always banned by the church.
 
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