More on passive euthanasia

I finally did address the Florida case yesterday. One comment reads:

I can agree that this patient should be DNR, and that if she were on a ventilator, I could understand removing it.

But to withhold food and water, and I know that it is through a gastric tube) seems to me to be beyond the pale.

Dying from dehydration and starvation is certainly not the way to go. A gastric feeding tube is not an extreme measure.

If you’re not going to feed and water her why not just give her a large bolus of morphine, that would be quicker and painless. (Not that I advocate that either. To me either way is proactive in bringing on death…and neither is something that I could partake in.)

The reader raises an interesting point. How do we distinguish between active and passive euthanasia? I strongly disagree with the first, and accept the second. I found this commentary from a Rabbi’s sermon on the High Holy Days: On euthanasia – for those interested, scroll down to the second sermon. To be the key paragraph in this intelligent sermon reads:

In commenting on this, Moses Isserles makes a distinction between accelerating the death of a gosaiys, which Isserles agrees is forbidden, and removing obstacles that impede death, which he allows.

“Thus it is forbidden to accelerate a person’s death. For example, one may not remove the pillow or mattress of a person who has been a gosaiys for a long time and is unable to expire, on the grounds that some claim that the feathers of certain birds can be the cause of this condition”-you can’t hasten the death by removing the feather pillow. “Likewise, such a person is not to be moved, and it is forbidden to put the keys to the house under the head of a person in order to cause the person to die. However, if something is present which preventing the soul from leaving-for example, the sound of pounding near the house as is made by a woodcutter . . . and this is preventing the soul from leaving, it may be removed inasmuch as this does not constitute an act in and of itself beyond removal of the impediment. ”

So we find ourselves with a complex philosophical point. Are we obliged to supply nutrients to a patient who cannot acquire them? This patient cannot feed herself in any way. Is a discontinuation of nutrition a legitimate and moral passive euthanasia?

I believe that this is a moral and compassionate option. I believe in states “worse than death”. I would not wish this poor woman’s condition on anyone.

I understand that others would disagree with this opinion. I hope you can understand the philosophical basis of this opinion.