You cannot remove a feeding tube, oxygen and medication from a patient. That is immoral.
Brother JR, I was in just such a situation regarding the death of my father.
I’d come to the cardiac unit due to an emergency call, with my parents in law and my mother. When I arrived, my father had already gone into cardiac arrest. I used my “voice of command” to get through to him in his semi-conscious state, and despite all the odds, the massive doses of stimulants and repeated shocks got his heart back into a sinus rhythm.
But 10 hours later, it was obvious that there had been no salvage. 2/3 of his heart muscle was akinetic - unmoving - dead. Despite heroic measures and massive deliberate dehydration over the previous 5 days - only one icecube per day - his lungs were filling with fluid. He had perhaps a few hours, perhaps less, left. There was now no longer even a 0.001% chance. It was now zero.
I asked him if he wanted the ventilator withdrawn, because he was fully conscious throughout, just too weak to breathe unaided for long. He nodded “yes” with some desperation.
He was too weak to speak in more than a whisper, or to hold a pen. So after making absolutely certain that was what he wanted, I signed for him to be extubated.
I then made sure he knew that I’d look after my mother and my sister. One of the three vows I’ve made in my life.
He managed to have a few sips of a last cup of tea, and to receive extreme unction in a “deathbed conversion” before lapsing into uneasy semi-consciousness. Still in agony.
So I signed for a dangerous dose of morphine “to help him breathe more easily”. Well, it will do that, but I’m not good enough at self-deception to believe that was the reason, and neither were the nurses and doctors who recommended it. I did it so my father, who had already fought back from the jaws of death despite agony, as long as there was even the tiniest chance, who had already experienced choking to death once, would not have to do it again. Even if it hastened his death by a few minutes.
And later, when the agony got too great, and he showed signs of becoming aware of it, yet more morphine. This may not hastened his death - but it might. That wasn’t a consideration. So as far as I’m concerned, whether it did or not is immaterial, the guilt, if guilt there be, is the same.
He was the most saintly man I know. And he would have done the same for me. I’m not sure I could do it for my son. I hope I could.
His example of manhood was the reason I kept up the boy act, until my body betrayed me. I wish I could have told him I was his daughter, not his son, but the thought never entered my mind at the time. I had far more important issues to deal with than my own concerns.
The next time that some “Catholic Bio-Ethicist” spouts on about how conditions such as mine are caused by abusive, weak parents, I will try to remain charitable. My Daddy would have wanted me to do that.
Now back on to the topic at hand. I’ve had a good cry about these events of seventeen years ago, and it’s done me the world of good.
