Moral implications of turning off the ventilator

[Biggie]

What’s extraordinary care? That’s the real question, and the answer will not be the same for everybody.

A feeding tube is not extraordinary most of the time, but in the case of a person with a progressive illness which now affects the throat and swallowing, but will inevitably also affect breathing, it could be so considered. It will only prolong life, without hope of recovery. Think Huntington’s.

A respirator is often considered to be extraordinary, but it is not extraordinary most of the time. Elderly people with pneumonia may need to be on one for a few days during the worst of their illness. Then the antibotics do their job, and they recover and come off it. A person who will never be able to be weaned from the respirator is extraordinary by almost anybody’s standard.

So if you are filling out an advanced care directive, be it Catholic or not, don’t just flatly list types of equipment to be accepted or refused. Make statements based on whether this is likely to be a permanent condition, and the possibility of healing.

If I understand the moral teaching correctly, providing a person food or water is never considered extraordinary care. It would be immoral to allow a person to starve to death or to die of thirst for lack of a feeding tube. Many people need various degrees of assistance in obtaining nourishment.

A person need not be in a perpetual situation where a machine causes a person to breathe or the heart to pump. The living human body is so constituted to perform these functions without assistance.

The thread has raised some interesting questions as to how long the latter condition has to be endured before it is extraordinary care, but I do think there is a need to be clear.

 

[Newbie2]

So extraordinary care might be considered to be treatment over and above basic needs (food, water, hygiene, comfort) that may prolong life in a situation where recovery is not going to happen. For example, ventilating someone who would be unable to breathe on their own and is never going to breathe unaided?

I see that cases may be different, one person may tolerate and adjust to permanent ventilation, especially if young or with a family, where another may not. For example a much older person without family and with other health conditions.

I did not know that Catholics could refuse extraordinary care without it being considered suicide. For me, that is reassuring.

I had a friend in her 80s with advanced ovarian cancer who refused dialysis when her kidneys failed and although I believe she had the right to choose, I did wonder how the Church views this type of decision.

Thank you
Karen

Dialysis is certainly extraordinary care, and I believe that this decision would be similar to refusing surgery or chemotherapy for an agressive, terminal cancer in such a patient. Such would be acceptable.