When is it Euthanasia

[JRKH]

It would be better to look to your priest for guidance on these issues.

That’s two votes for talking to your priest.
I know that when my mother was facing these decision with my dad, she relied heavily on three things: 1) My father’s known wishes. 2) Constant, deep, reflective prayer, and 3) the advice and support of her parish priest, a good and holy man.

Of course this is not to say that discussions like this aren’t helpful in properly forming the conscience so that, when the time comes, we have a good, “well formed conscience”, upon which to base our decisions.

Peace
James

 

[JRKH]

{Snip}
Euthanasia is simply a direct action taken to end a person’s life. Removing a ventaliator or a NG or PEG tube may hasten death, but it doesn’t cause it. The underlying condition is what causes it. Euthanasia would be holding a pillow over someone’s face, or injecting a huge amount of morphine with teh direct intention of ending their life.

Euthanasia is murder. Removal of a ventilator or a PEG feed is simply accepting nature’s course of action. Of course, there are lots of variables in these situations which sometimes point out that someone is well aware that removing a PEG is going to cause death by starvation and that is their intention, like in the case of Terri Schiavo. She would have continued to live as she did with no other extreme mechanical interferance except for a PEG tube. What they did to her was not just a kind of cheeky euthanasia, but cold blooded murder.

I lie what you say here but I also think that this can be one of the things that confuse people. You say above that Euthanasia is a, “direct action taken to end a person’s life”. In principle I agree with this, but then one must decide what constitutes “direct action”.
You say that “removal of a ventilator or (feeding) tube is accepting nature’s course”. Yet the removal of such support is IS a direct action, and what other reason can ther be in this than the hastening of natural death. (I’m speaking here of their removal as opposed to the decision not to install them in the first place.)
From this one can see how complex such things can become for families faced with these decisions.

I have little experience with these things and pray God I’m not faced with it in any sort of immediate or extraordinary way (an accident or injury). In the case of my terminally ill wife, I already know her wishes, AND thanks to my expereince with my father’s passing from the same illness, I am prepared (as well as can be) for the end.
There will be no extrodinary measures. God’s Will (and nature’s) will be permitted and accepted to run it’s course.

Let us, each and every one, in discussing this, remember that every instance and every case is unique. Principles and guidelines can be established and are good for guiding our conscience, but the many factors that go into “end of life” decisions must be considered on a case by case, family by family basis.

Peace
James

 

[Ron_Conte]

There is nothing wrong, in principle, with advising someone to talk to their priest about some question of faith or morals.

However, the opinion of any priest can NEVER substitute for the definitive teaching of Tradition, Scripture, and the Magisterium (TSM) on any matter of faith or morals. It is not true that a Catholic can avoid sin, while acting against the definitive teaching of the Church on morality, on the basis of a claim that his conscience permits the act. Neither is it true that a Catholic can avoid sin, while acting against the definitive teaching of the Church on morality, on the basis of a claim that his priest permits the act.

So the intention in speaking to your priest on a matter of morality must be to obtain assistance in learning the teaching of TSM on that same matter.

 

[JRKH]

There is nothing wrong, in principle, with advising someone to talk to their priest about some question of faith or morals.

However, the opinion of any priest can NEVER substitute for the definitive teaching of Tradition, Scripture, and the Magisterium (TSM) on any matter of faith or morals. It is not true that a Catholic can avoid sin, while acting against the definitive teaching of the Church on morality, on the basis of a claim that his conscience permits the act. Neither is it true that a Catholic can avoid sin, while acting against the definitive teaching of the Church on morality, on the basis of a claim that his priest permits the act.

So the intention in speaking to your priest on a matter of morality must be to obtain assistance in learning the teaching of TSM on that same matter.

Where there is “definitive teaching” I certainly agree. However, I do not believe that there can ever be fully definitive teaching in end of life matters because of the many and varied situations and circumstances involved. This is why the Church places an emphasis on the freedom of conscience acting, within the light of The Holy Spirit through Prayer, Scripture and Church Teaching.
To remove the moral conscience from the equation is to reduce matters to “legalism”.

This is not to negate what you say above, but to put it in perspective. When and whether sin is incurred in many of these matters is something that we would have a hard time pinning down, and as such is best left between those nivolved and their priest/confessor. Sure there are clear cases when sin is incuured, and clear cases when it is not, but there remains any number of situations and circumstances where it is not so clear cut. Situations where, even is sin is incurred, culpability is effected by, knowledge, advice and/or emotional distress.

The Catechism has an entire section devoted to Conscience, and its importance. I highly recommend that everyone read it so as to avoid what Ron warns against above, using conscience as an “excuse” for doing something that you know in your heart to be immoral.

Peace
James

 

[Ron_Conte]

Where there is “definitive teaching” I certainly agree. However, I do not believe that there can ever be fully definitive teaching in end of life matters because of the many and varied situations and circumstances involved.

The Magisterium definitively teaches that euthanasia is intrinsically evil, regardless of intention or circumstances. So it is contrary to Catholic teaching to claim that there can never be a fully definitive teaching condemning an ‘end of life’ act as immoral.

Pope John Paul II: “Regardless of intentions and circumstances, euthanasia is always an intrinsically evil act, a violation of God’s law and an offence against the dignity of the human person.”
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_01101999_elderly_en.html

The claim that no act can be definitively condemned, based on the nature or species of the act (the moral nature of the act, in and of itself), apart from intention and circumstances, is a claim that has been rejected by the Magisterium (Veritatis Splendor, CCC).

II. Good Acts and Evil Acts

1755 A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself (such as praying and fasting “in order to be seen by men”). The object of the choice can by itself vitiate an act in its entirety. There are some concrete acts - such as fornication - that it is always wrong to choose, because choosing them entails a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.

1756 It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.

See also Veritatis Splendor:

1. One must therefore reject the thesis, characteristic of teleological and proportionalist theories, which holds that it is impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its species — its “object” — the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behaviour or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned.
2. Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature “incapable of being ordered” to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church’s moral tradition, have been termed “intrinsically evil” (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances.

The faithful can discuss and to some extent disagree on whether a particular concrete act has an evil moral object and is therefore intrinsically evil, e.g. on whether a particular act is in fact euthanasia.

But we cannot claim that it is impossible to condemn any act without knowing the intention and the circumstances.

 

[ElizabethPH]

But we cannot claim that it is impossible to condemn any act without knowing the intention and the circumstances.

So you can say pulling the plug is euthanasia without knowing the intention and the circumstances. (exempli gratia)That I shot and killed my neighbor is murder despite the intention and the circumstances.

 

[JRKH]

The Magisterium definitively teaches that euthanasia is intrinsically evil, regardless of intention or circumstances. So it is contrary to Catholic teaching to claim that there can never be a fully definitive teaching condemning an ‘end of life’ act as immoral.

Agreed. Then the definition of “Euthanasia” needs to be also clearly defined. Earlier, you gave this definintion of Euthenasia:
Euthanasia is any act of comission or omission that is intrinsically ordered toward the deprivation of life from an innocent human person. The intentional choice of such an intrinsically disordered act is always a grave sin.

May I ask if this an “official definition” and what document it comes from?
The CCC uses slightly different wording but is essentially the same. It says,
…an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder…(CCC 2277)
The Catechism also says this:
Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of “over-zealous” treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected. (CCC 2278)
Now in the interest of “fully definitive” teaching, can you provide clear definitions and guidelines as to what constitutes, “burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate”, procedures in every given situation? At what point does “Euthenasia”, change to, “one’s inability to impede (death) is merely accepted”?

The faithful can discuss and to some extent disagree on whether a particular concrete act has an evil moral object and is therefore intrinsically evil, e.g. on whether a particular act is in fact euthanasia.

Precisely my point and the point of this thread.

But we cannot claim that it is impossible to condemn any act without knowing the intention and the circumstances.

I don’t believe that I ever said we could not condemn an act as intrincisically wrong so you and I don’t disagree on this. However there CAN exist circumstances where the magisterium cannot or does not make definition on every nuance of every intention in every circumstance. This is particularly true in areas such as medical science where procedures, medicines etc. can change rapidly.
About the best they can do is what they have done. Provide the basic facts and general circustances. After that and to use their own words, “The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.” (CCC2278)

Therefore, As I have said from teh beginning. Read up - Pray, properly form your conscience, talk to your loved ones about their wishes (and make your own wishes known to others), speak with your priest if there is time, so that when and if the time comes, you can make the best, most Loving, decision properly and in good conscience.

Peace
James