Is it sinful to remove a ventilator?

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Zatzat said:
If this is the true Catholic position…:eek:

What your saying is that Catholics Church’s position is;

…that if a machine is keeping someone breathing, they must remain on that machine until their heart finally stops on it’s own or a terrible infection destroy’s their body.

What’s amazing to me, is that the catholic position actually over rules natural death.

On ventilator- person lives until an infection kills them or their heart stops.

Off Ventilator - person dies within hours, as their bodies are unable to breathe on their own.

I honestly didn’t think that the Catholic Church insisted that it was sinful to not allow a machine to breathe for a person.

My mother tried for 5 months to recover from a horrific illness. She was on a ventilator for 3 months, her body deteriorated, her lungs seeped with infection. My mother chose to go off the ventilator. When the ventilator was shut off and my mother’s own body was responsible for breathing, she died within 4 hours.

I would think that when the machine is turned off and the human body dies within hours, that the machine was providing extraordinary life support.

If the Catholic Church believes my mothers decision was a sin, I’m glad I have nothing to do with such a Church or even such a God for that matter…
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Not exactly what I’m saying. Let me try to say it using different words.

But before I go on, allow me to say that I’m sorry to hear about your mother’s death. I understand your concern, because I was faced with the same choice when my seven-year old son was in a fatal car accident that killed by wife, father and destroyed my son’s brain.

When my son was taken to the hospital his brain was damaged to the point that there was no way of surviving. He was alive with the help of technology. I had to decide to keep him on life support or turn off the machines. In that case, there was no hope that he would live and all the evidence suggested that he was breathing because the machine was doing it, not his brain.

In that case, it is perfectly moral to turn off the machine and let nature take its course. If a person is alive and his only disability is respiratory (we’re talking about a ventilator), then there is a question here. The moral question is whether the person can live with the machine, albeit with a disability. If the person can live, then it raises a moral concern. Are we killing the person?

On the other hand, if as you said, the person has such severe complications that all the machine is doing is prolonging the inevitable or the machine is causing hardship, then there is no moral oblgiation to continue that level of care. It becomes extraordinary.

What the Church wants to make sure is that we don’t jump too quickly to call something extraordinary just because we’re using technology. The purpose of technology is to help save and preserve life. Therefore, the use of technology to save or to preserve life is not extraordinary. The use of technology in a situation that is hopeless is extraordinary.

I have to add here that I’m not a medical ethicist. We should always look to medical ethicists and moral theologians for clarifications. I would encourage anyone who has such a question to do the same. It is impossible to address every specific situation through a post on a thread/forum.

I strogly suggest that anyone with such a question call their local office for Respect Life Ministry, see a theologian, deacon or priest, or contact the Sisters of Life or Priests for Life. They are experts in these matters.

www.sistersoflife.org and www.priestsforlife.org

I hope these links may be helpful to someone, because I know how difficult these issues can be when they catch us by surprise. I was caught off guard when I had to face this question regarding my seven-year old son. Mercifully, my wife and father, who were also in the car, died on impact. But turning off that machine on my seven-year old was the most heart-wrenching decision that I have ever had to make and would not wish it on my worse enemy.

All that being said, the Catholic Church’s guidance on this question was very helpful and full of compassion for my son, my two surviving children and me. The Catholic Church’s positions on life issues are neither ruthless nor cold. On the contrary, anything that stems from the truth about God is very gentle and gives great peace, even when there is a great loss.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
I haven’t the words to express how sorry I am to have heard the kind of loss you’ve suffered.

Thanks for taking the time to clarify the position, it’s much clearer now.

Regards

Zat
 
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stcalixtus:
inserted my reply incorrectly…into middle of former post, anyway please be aware that each person/pt involved in end of life decisions is unique in their needs and physiology, not everyone has the same definition of what life is and in turn have different thoughts about do not resusitate request, I have witnessed and agonized over so many end of life scenarios,I feel I have not sinned by turning off the ventilator,I feel professionally and spiritually absolved and I do have faith that all rest in peace and await heaven, a heaven with no pain and filled with love and joy:angel1: I have been at this for twenty years and honestly cannot remember most the names, then their face or their situation comes to mind, sometimes it weighs heavily on me but I take solace in the fact I was their to provide comfort to them and their family:o God bless all you that have lost loved ones.
 
Zatzat said:
I haven’t the words to express how sorry I am to have heard the kind of loss you’ve suffered.

Thanks for taking the time to clarify the position, it’s much clearer now.

Regards

Zat
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I’m so glad that it’s clearer now. I have to say that my life has been peaceful. In fact, I discovered my second vocation through this experience. After raising my two surviving children I could clearly see God’s plan for me. I became a Franciscan Brother of Life. After completing my religious formation and getting my degree in theology I have done nothing else but minister to people who grapple with life decisions: end of life and abortion too. It’s painful to watch people go through this, but it is also a blessing when we can be just a little pencil in God’s hands and watch God sign his name on someone’s heart, a name that says, “I love you.”

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
A means is extraordinary if the patient is dying and all you’re doing is prolonging the person’s agony. If the person can live with the support given and would die if you take it away, then you may not take the support away. The support is not extraordinary.
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That is not the definition of “extraordinary means” that I recognize.
 
JReducation said:
Not exactly what I’m saying. Let me try to say it using different words.

But before I go on, allow me to say that I’m sorry to hear about your mother’s death. I understand your concern, because I was faced with the same choice when my seven-year old son was in a fatal car accident that killed by wife, father and destroyed my son’s brain.

When my son was taken to the hospital his brain was damaged to the point that there was no way of surviving. He was alive with the help of technology. I had to decide to keep him on life support or turn off the machines. In that case, there was no hope that he would live and all the evidence suggested that he was breathing because the machine was doing it, not his brain.

In that case, it is perfectly moral to turn off the machine and let nature take its course. If a person is alive and his only disability is respiratory (we’re talking about a ventilator), then there is a question here. The moral question is whether the person can live with the machine, albeit with a disability. If the person can live, then it raises a moral concern. Are we killing the person?

On the other hand, if as you said, the person has such severe complications that all the machine is doing is prolonging the inevitable or the machine is causing hardship, then there is no moral oblgiation to continue that level of care. It becomes extraordinary.

What the Church wants to make sure is that we don’t jump too quickly to call something extraordinary just because we’re using technology. The purpose of technology is to help save and preserve life. Therefore, the use of technology to save or to preserve life is not extraordinary. The use of technology in a situation that is hopeless is extraordinary.

I have to add here that I’m not a medical ethicist. We should always look to medical ethicists and moral theologians for clarifications. I would encourage anyone who has such a question to do the same. It is impossible to address every specific situation through a post on a thread/forum.

I strogly suggest that anyone with such a question call their local office for Respect Life Ministry, see a theologian, deacon or priest, or contact the Sisters of Life or Priests for Life. They are experts in these matters.

www.sistersoflife.org and www.priestsforlife.org

I hope these links may be helpful to someone, because I know how difficult these issues can be when they catch us by surprise. I was caught off guard when I had to face this question regarding my seven-year old son. Mercifully, my wife and father, who were also in the car, died on impact. But turning off that machine on my seven-year old was the most heart-wrenching decision that I have ever had to make and would not wish it on my worse enemy.

All that being said, the Catholic Church’s guidance on this question was very helpful and full of compassion for my son, my two surviving children and me. The Catholic Church’s positions on life issues are neither ruthless nor cold. On the contrary, anything that stems from the truth about God is very gentle and gives great peace, even when there is a great loss.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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I certainly appreciated the clarity in with you wrote and support it wholeheartedly.

Br. JR; I too also echo Zatzat sincere sentiments.

I know well the great silent pain my father suffered being a quadriplegic completely paralyzed head to foot 14 months in a Neuro-Intensive Care Unit and another ten years living at home that was renovated into Mini-hospital with full nursing care 365 days a year 24/7. Some may-be biased and judge this as cruel to keep him alive though he was on a ventilator for eleven years. It was not. He had the very best of medical care, far better than he would have in a Hospital. It was both his decision and the family. Most of all he had the immense love and great respect of family, nurses, and even strangers who would visit him. Was it wrong to keep him alive all those years? Again I don’t think so. I’d say He gave back far more love and life to us as we could return to him no matter how greatly we loved him as a family. My father was gifted as being very spiritually profound. God was his life and oh how so much he loved the Faith of Catholic Church and lives of the saints. For those many years he suffered the Dark Night of the Soul But in the end he won his race and has moved on to a better place in the Heart of the Virgin Mary his true Mother and Her Son Jesus.
 
Doc_Keele said:
That is not the definition of “extraordinary means” that I recognize.
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Let’s use the Church’s language. It may be more helpful that my summary. The Church considers extraordinary anything that is disproportionate. Therefore, if it’s proportionate, it is not extraordinary. Proportionate is that which is necessary to live, even if the person lives with a disability. Dispraportionate would be that which hurts the patient in one of many ways, as pointed in the citations below or something that is not possible.

We have to be very careful with the use of the term extraordinary, because in some places hydration and feeding tubes are considered extraordinary by the State. But moral theologians say, “Absolutely not.” Hydration and feeding, through a tube or any other means is ordinary care.

Anyway, here is the Church’s exact language. You can find all of the documents at www.usccb.org and go to life issues on the left.

When inevitable death is imminent in spite of the means used, it is permitted in conscience to take the decision to refuse forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life, so long as the normal care due to the sick person in similar cases is not interrupted. In such circumstances the doctor has no reason to reproach himself with failing to help the person in danger.

The above passage was what I was trying to paraphrase. But maybe I did not do a good job at it. Here is the point on extraordinary methods or means.

In the past, moralists replied that one is never obliged to use “extraordinary” means. This reply, which as a principle still holds good, is perhaps less clear today, by reason of the imprecision of the term and the rapid progress made in the treatment of sickness. Thus some people prefer to speak of “proportionate” and “disproportionate” means. In any case, it will be possible to make a correct judgment as to the means by studying the type of treatment to be used, its degree of complexity or risk, its cost and the possibilities of using it, and comparing these elements with the result that can be expected, taking into account the state of the sick person and his or her physical and moral resources.

If you read the above passage, you’ll notice the difference between proportionate and disproportionate. The effort to use different words is because there are many definitions of extraordinary floating around out there.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Well you’ve already contradicted yourself. NG or PEG feeding can be “extraordinary means” by the definition you’re using, that it causes and/or prolongs suffering. Surely the most logical definition of “extraordinary means” is intrinsic to the modality of the treatment rather than depending on whether or not it causes suffering? Your definition lacks coherence.
So keeping someone on a ventilator indefinitely is not “extraordinary means”???🤷
 
Doc_Keele said:
Well you’ve already contradicted yourself. NG or PEG feeding can be “extraordinary means” by the definition you’re using, that it causes and/or prolongs suffering. Surely the most logical definition of “extraordinary means” is intrinsic to the modality of the treatment rather than depending on whether or not it causes suffering? Your definition lacks coherence.
So keeping someone on a ventilator indefinitely is not “extraordinary means”???🤷
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So I take it by your intellectual inference that what my family did was wrong and sinful?
Fascinating.
 
Doc_Keele said:
Well you’ve already contradicted yourself. NG or PEG feeding can be “extraordinary means” by the definition you’re using, that it causes and/or prolongs suffering. Surely the most logical definition of “extraordinary means” is intrinsic to the modality of the treatment rather than depending on whether or not it causes suffering? Your definition lacks coherence.
So keeping someone on a ventilator indefinitely is not “extraordinary means”???🤷
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Try to understand how the term extraordinary is being used by the Church. The moral theologian is alling extraordinary what is disproportionate. A feeding tube may be disproportionate if it is aggravating the situation. This is what the Church means when it says that it cannot cause suffering. She not referring to discomfort. Some things are uncomfortable. If the feeding tube or the ventilator are keeping the person alive and everyhing else functions as it should, then these are not disproportionate. Technology and medicine are supposed to conserve life. There is nothing wrong with using them.

If for example, you have a person who is brain dead and you have ventialtor, the ventilator is disproportionate. The ventilator is postponing death. This is not a person who can live with a ventilator. Other people can live, even though they have a very challenging disability. In this case, the ventilator may not be disproportionate. The person is comfortable, the rest of his organs function normally and the ventilator is not doing harm.

As someone posted before, her mother was on a ventilator, but she developed many serious complications, including infection, the ventilator then become disproportionate. There are too many other conditions that are affecting the person’s health. If the person goes into a coma, you can morally take the ventilator away and allow the person to use their own lungs, if they can do so, for as long as they can do so.

The Church’s position is very compassionate. I believe that it’s compassionate because it’s based on her fidelity to truth. Truth tells us that we don’t do anything with the intent to terminate a person’s life or to accelerate death. But we may allow a person to die a natural death, when the means at our disposal are disproportionate.

Again, I refer you to the documents. You may understand them more easily than you understand me, because I’m trying to summarize and paraphrase about 10 documents into one post. That’s not easy to do.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
If for example, you have a person who is brain dead and you have ventialtor, the ventilator is disproportionate. The ventilator is postponing death
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OK, all treatments only ever *postpone death! Agreed!

This is not a person who can live with a ventilator* Why not?
Other people can live, even though they have a very challenging disability. In this case, the ventilator may not be disproportionate. The person is comfortable, the rest of his organs function normally and the ventilator is not doing harm.
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The person who is brain stem dead is comfortable, his other organs may well be functioning normally. As for the ventilator doing harm or not, that’s a debatable question. Have you ever been ventilated? I haven’t, but I’ve seen enough people who have who never, ever want to go through that again.
 
Doc_Keele said:
OK, all treatments only ever postpone death! Agreed!
Why not?
The person who is brain stem dead is comfortable, his other organs may well be functioning normally. As for the ventilator doing harm or not, that’s a debatable question. Have you ever been ventilated? I haven’t, but I’ve seen enough people who have who never, ever want to go through that again.
[Have you ever been ventilated? I haven’t, but I’ve seen enough people who have who never, ever want to go through that again.]
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I don’t think every situation of someone who is ventilated is as cut and dry as the actual person involved. I believe Brother J.R. tried to convey that in the light of morality as the Catholic Church sees every situational circumstance with patients requiring ventilators.

My father’s case though somewhat worse was very similar to American actor Christopher Reeves “Superman”. Thus is the case of thousands of afflicted individuals whom have need of extraordinary life support. There is moral responsibility and culpability in every situational case whether one chooses to except the ventilator for life support or pulling the plug and choosing to die instead. Does a patient on a ventilator have the right to die because such extraordinary means will cause him/her long suffering? Most people fear suffering through lack of understanding as the Catholic Church teaches it.
There is nothing today in medical expertise that would cause any human being to suffer so greatly that would be so unbearable. Would I want to be ventilated? No. But this doesn’t remove my empathy or compassion to those that do require a ventilator.
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Many years ago I used to ask God why he allows so much terrible affliction and suffering in this world. No doubt many theologians and scholars could lecture and write in depth reflective thoughts to answer such a grand question. For me I see people who suffer so greatly as beacons of light. They are placed on this earth not only to move human hearts to compassion and empathy, but for us to serve in humility and true love.

This past February 11th, 2010 in Lourdes, France Pope Benedict XVI declared this year (“The Year of the Sick.”) larche.org/message-of-his-holiness-benedict-xvi-for-the-eighteenth-world-day-of-the-sick.en-gb.54.143.content.htm

We too must echo the behavior of people like Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Jean Vanier of International L’Arche communities.larche.org/jean-vanier-founder-of-l-arche.en-gb.23.13.content.htm
 
Doc_Keele said:
OK, all treatments only ever postpone death! Agreed!
Why not?
The person who is brain stem dead is comfortable, his other organs may well be functioning normally. As for the ventilator doing harm or not, that’s a debatable question. Have you ever been ventilated? I haven’t, but I’ve seen enough people who have who never, ever want to go through that again.

I have a youner sister who is diabetic. She had a crisis and had to be ventilated. She was unconscious for a month and breathed using the ventilator. When we were trying to decide what to do we asked the doctor what the prognosis was. His said that he had cases such as these in the past and that he had pulled them through. Therefore he has faith that he could pull my sister through. In that case, the ventialtor is proportionate, because there is hope that the person will survive. She may not have had to live her entire life with a ventilator, but she would have been alive. To take the ventilator away would have been immoral, because it would have killed someone when there was hope.

The end to the story is that after a month my sister recovered consciousness. Today, she is at home with her husband and son. She is still attached to a ventilator and she says that it is horrible. But she is happy to be with her husband and son. Will she ever recover lung function? No one knows. Is she alive? Very much so.

As I posted before, my wife, father and seven-year old son were in an auto accident. My wife and father were killed on impact. My son was in the hospital with irreperable damage to the brain stem. He was on a ventilator. In his case, the ventilator was disproportionate. There was not way that he would live, even as a person with a disability. I made the choice to terminate the ventilator support, but keep natural supports. The feeding tube was left in place, oxygen and medications were also in place. My son died within minutes.

Have you ever had to decide when to turn the ventilator off? I have, twice. Once the ventilator was disproportionate. The second time, the ventilaor was proportionate.

Not every case is the same. The rule is to determine what and when something is disproportionate or proportionae. What is proportionate in one case, is disproportionate in another.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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Doc_Keele said:
As for the ventilator doing harm or not, that’s a debatable question. Have you ever been ventilated? I haven’t, but I’ve seen enough people who have who never, ever want to go through that again.
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I had a very sick loved one on a ventilator for three months…

Infection, after infection, after infection…

That is life on a ventilator. I sincerely didn’t know that until I was in a situation where I was forced to notice.
 
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