WASHINGTON – The leader of the Archdiocese of Washington says it was wrong to remove Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick says once the tube was inserted, its removal to allow her to die constitutes euthanasia or mercy killing.
Appearing on A-B-C’s "This Week," McCarrick says discussions about Schiavo’s situation are good, but that life and death are complicated matters.
McCarrick says under Catholic doctrine, one cannot take a life. But he also says it would have been good for people to know what Schiavo’s wishes were before her illness. [Source]
Usually the guys in white hats or in this case purple mitres arrive on the scene just in time to save the heroine. Speaking on this subject 9 days after her feeding tube was removed is not exactly timely. If this representation of what the Cardinal said is accurate I do wonder how morally it would make a difference to have known her wishes before hand. If this was truly her wishes then the morality would have moved from murder to assisted suicide. As if a suicide note in the form of a living will is sufficient reason to withold food and water from somebody whose body can easily accept it with no harm.
I also wonder that if we can withold food and water why not air. Oxygen is normal life support for us the same as food and water. Death by asphyxiation would be faster than the body slowly shutting down, going into seizures, and the agonizing death by dehydration. If we don’t have to err on the side of life, then why air on the side of life?
Update: The Fact Is has a fuller transcript of the Cardinal’s appearance. Justin Torres also asks the same questions that I did as to the question about the relevance of Terri’s wishes.
11 comments
“once the tube is inserted”?
Is this typical media stupidity on Catholicism, or is the Cardinal suggesting that while feeding cannot be stopped once begun, food can licitly be denied ab initio?
If Terri’s husband is right about what Terri said about not wanting to live this way,that will be assisted suicide.{ Against the law} If he is lying then it is murder,mercy killing or euthanasia.{Against the law} What is going on here is not about Terri. She happens to be a convenient victim.Remember Kervorkian who pushed assisted suicide and was put in jail for it.I believe that this is a backdoor attempt to legalize it.They will have a case where assisted suicide took place and at least the courts did not object.That’s my theory anyway.
Killing someone who wants to be killed is voluntary euthanasia. Helping someone to kill themselves (by giving them pills or hooking them up to a lethal IV that they themselves must initiate) is assisted suicide. Killing someone who does not want to be killed is involuntary euthanasia.
So if Terri wanted to be killed, it would be voluntary euthanasia and not assisted suicide.
The m-w.com definition of euthanasia:
Main Entry: eu�tha�na�sia
Pronunciation: “y�-th&-‘nA-zh(E-)&
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek, easy death, from euthanatos, from eu- + thanatos death — more at THANATOS
: the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy
– eu�tha�na�sic /-zik, -sik/ adjective
If this wasn’t such a serious case I’d say better late than never to the Cardinal but it’s too late to help Terri and it’s too late to help the country. In 30 years or so chronicly sick people will simply be euthanized with a shot of morphine or maybe an air bubble in their IVs and none of us will have anything to say about it.
I never heard of the term, voluntary euthanasia. In this case, Terri would be asking for help to die and to do that she needed assistance. Maybe voluntary euthanasia is PC for assisted suicide.
George,
The two are distinct. Otherwise “involuntary euthanasia” would be redundant. For it to be assisted suicide, it has to be actual suicide: the person has to take their own life, not consent to it being taken by another. See the National Right to Life Committee’s website for this and other definitions.
There was a disgusting swipe at Tom DeLay this morning. Apparently ten years ago his father was involved in a really bad accident. His family decided that in the circumstances, dialysis and other procedures constituted extraordinary measures, and put a normal “Do Not Resuscitate” order out. The media is now claiming this is the same as Terri Schiavo.
Because of course Terri was also shattered and smeared against a tree by a heavy backyard train running down a hill and landing on top of her.
Oh, wait, that was the _legal system_ that ran her over….
Tom DeLay is not a hypocrite. Rather, he’s someone who understands the horribly hard decisions of life and death. How could you possibly compare ventilators and dialysis machines to a tube for food and water? And even if he _had_ done wrong to his father, how would it make him hypocritical to do _right_ by Terri Schiavo? *eye roll*
The proper term for “involuntary euthanasia” is “murder in sheep’s clothing”.
Jeff:
If Cardinal McCarrick said, “Christ is risen!”, would you wonder about why he didn’t add that He rose in His physical body, and that those who portray it as a purely spiritual resurrection are preaching heresy?
Tom,
I hope I wasn’t doing anything of the sort. I just wondered why he brought up the point about Terri’s wishes since I don’t see how it affects the morality of witholding food and water.
It doesn’t, of course. It’s no more moral to kill a person who wants to die than one who doesn’t. Something that isn’t being said as often as it might in this situation is that one’s life is not one’s own possession, to be kept or thrown away as one chooses. The wrong is taking a life, not taking a life which the person doesn’t want.
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