• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Bishop Robert Barron
          • George Weigel
          • Question Corner
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Suzanna Molino Singleton
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Paul McMullen
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Father T. Austin Murphy Jr.
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • Advertising
  • CR Radio
  • Printing
  • Subscribe

Food for thought on helpless seniors

Richard Doerflinger April 4, 2018
By Richard Doerflinger
Filed Under: A More Human Society, Commentary

On March 11, The Washington Post reported on efforts to expand the “right to die” in Oregon and elsewhere.

The state has passed legislation to study changing its law on “advance directives,” by which people can decide on future care in case they lose cognitive powers. A key supporter of this effort is Bill Harris, whose wife Nora recently died of Alzheimer’s disease. He is angry that caregivers spoon-fed his wife until two days before she died despite her advance instruction to the contrary.

Harris has sued the health facility and lost. The court noted that Nora kept opening her mouth to receive food even when she was unable to do much else. Harris said this should have been dismissed as a “reflexive” action.

The group End of Life Washington as well has distributed instructions on how people can demand in advance that they be starved to death if they develop dementia.

Stephen Drake of the disability rights group Not Dead Yet sees this trend as troubling. “It really is a big game changer in the number of people whose lives can be ended when they’re in vulnerable situations,” he said.

It’s troubling indeed, in three ways.

First, advance directive laws have generally not assumed that such documents can substitute for decisions made in the here and now. They generally allow a directive refusing treatment to be overridden by the patient at any time and in any state of mind by destroying the directive or speaking or acting otherwise.

This is a wise policy. Many able-bodied people say they would “rather be dead” than live with a severe disability or chronic illness. Many who develop disabilities later in life say they were suicidal at first, feeling they had lost the life they were accustomed to — but after a period of adjustment, with loving support they found value in the life they now had.

Thus when the President’s Council on Bioethics published its 2005 study “Taking Care,” it asked, When I am able-bodied, do I have the right to discriminate against the person with disabilities I will become? The sensible answer is no.

Second, many laws allow for advance directions on artificially assisted feeding such as by nasogastric tube — but they insist this does not apply to oral feeding. Oregon’s law is of this kind. The campaign to define tube feeding as optional “treatment” relied heavily on the argument that it is not like oral feeding, a form of basic care that we all need as infants and may need again as we age.

Now “right to die” supporters are jettisoning the distinction that got them that far. This is not an ethical argument but a “bait and switch” marketing ploy.

Third, if we can starve our demented seniors to death, why not finish them off more quickly?

Canada has begun to answer this question. Its law allows euthanasia when “natural death has become reasonably foreseeable.” The leading physicians’ group in British Columbia recently declared that this includes patients whose only “terminal” condition is that they are no longer getting food.

In Oregon, too, the law allowing assisted suicide for people expected to die in six months is being interpreted to include people who could live a long time with treatment but will die soon without treatment. If oral feeding is “treatment,” we are all terminal, thus eligible for assisted suicide once we are denied food.

The U.S. assisted-suicide movement has ridiculed slippery-slope arguments, saying we will never follow the Netherlands in approving assisted suicide for people who only have dementia. It seems we are almost there now.

Copyright ©2018 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Richard Doerflinger

Richard Doerflinger

Richard Doerflinger, who worked for 36 years in the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, writes the "A More Human Society" column for Catholic News Service. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

View all posts from this author

Recent Commentary

This Lent, risk prayer

A Lent full of promise, steak success, cooking with children, and more (7 Quick Takes)

Archbishop Lori reflects on the Year of St. Joseph

Reason for celibacy/ Blessing for non-sacramental marriage?

Pandemic Stories (or why there’s a Nerf gun in the tub)

Recent Local News

Father John Lesnick, known for compassionate outreach, dies at 71

Deacon Davis, who served Overlea parish for decades, dies at 84

Archdiocese of Baltimore plans ‘Safe Haven Sunday’ to fight pornography

Pasadena parish cites pandemic in decision to close preschool

Father Snouffer, information technology trailblazer for archdiocese, dies at 83

Catholic Review Radio

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • This Lent, risk prayer
  • Father John Lesnick, known for compassionate outreach, dies at 71
  • In interview, pope says he will remain in Rome until death
  • A Lent full of promise, steak success, cooking with children, and more (7 Quick Takes)
  • Archbishop Lori reflects on the Year of St. Joseph
  • Health care chaplains in Baltimore and beyond embrace self-care in COVID-19 work
  • Religious order withdraws request to transfer founder’s remains to U.S.
  • Deacon Davis, who served Overlea parish for decades, dies at 84
  • Reason for celibacy/ Blessing for non-sacramental marriage?
  • Archdiocese of Baltimore plans ‘Safe Haven Sunday’ to fight pornography

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2021 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED