(LifeSiteNews) – On the day our lives changed forever, my husband was diagnosed with a tumor on his brain stem. The tumor had caused blockage of cerebrospinal fluid, and he was in immediate danger of death. We were told to go to another hospital at once to prepare for an operation. The healthcare worker had already called a taxicab to take us there.
We refused the cab. Instead, we asked our friend Angela to drive us to the home of our Traditional Latin Mass chaplain. There, my husband had the Last Rites, and then we went to the hospital to wait for our next instructions.
We sat alone in a waiting room for what seemed a long time. Our situation was surreal. The day had begun with a minor squabble about where to buy coffee and his appointment at Edinburgh’s Eye Pavilion. It was apparently to end with brain surgery.
“I guess we should talk about your end-of-life wishes,” I said — or words to that effect. How my husband replied is clearer in my memory.
“I want what the Church teaches,” he said.
“OK,” I said, although, to be honest, I couldn’t remember exactly what the Church teaches. I remembered from the Terri Schiavo case that Pope John Paul II was adamant that food and water, even when administered artificially, is ordinary care for a disabled, sick, or terminally ill person and must not be removed to cause his or her death.
Unfortunately, clinically administered nutrition and hydration (CANH) is not considered “ordinary care” in the United Kingdom. The possibility of having to fight the National Health Service to get food and drink to my husband, should he end up in an irreparable coma, loomed before me. But I didn’t want to think about that, so I just asked him what he thought about “extraordinary measures.”
“What are those?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t know,” I replied. “I once asked (a family member) what (they) would want, and (they) said (they) wouldn’t want ‘extraordinary measures.’”
“I just want what the Church teaches,” my husband repeated.
Here, I will break off the narrative to note that in the course of my duties for LifeSiteNews I have met a British psychologist who is adamant that everyone should think about their end-of-life care preferences, discuss them with their families, and write them down BEFORE any of them are in a hospital waiting room. She was pleased to hear that I am committed to convincing you all to do that.
My acquaintance is not a Christian, and her principal concerns are that individuals should not be given medical care — including clinically administered nutrition and hydration — that they do not want and that they should not be refused life-extending treatment that they do want. Like many unchurched people, she is all about autonomy. What God wants is not within her scope of interest, but it certainly is in mine and, I hope, in yours.
Thus, let’s look at what the Catholic Church has to say about that. According to the UK’s Anscombe Bioethics Centre, this can be found in the Vatican’s Declaration on Euthanasia(1980), John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae (1995), the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997), and John Paul II’s address “On Life-Sustaining Treatments and the Vegetative State”(2004).
Central to the discussion is the dignity of the human person and his or her right to life. The Catholic Church upholds human life as the primary earthly value.
Human life is the basis of all goods and is the necessary source and condition of every human activity and of all society. Most people regard life as something sacred and hold that no one may dispose of it at will, but believers see in life something greater, namely, a gift of God’s love, which they are called upon to preserve and make fruitful. (Declaration on Euthanasia)
That God has a plan for every human being must never be discounted. We all have a moral obligation to preserve and care for human lives, for they are gifts from God. Murder, suicide, and euthanasia are all violations of this duty. The Declaration on Euthanasia, approved by Pope John Paul II, is very clear that the practise is a serious evil
No one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action. For it is a question of the violation of the divine law, an offense against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity. (Declaration on Euthanasia)
Read the rest: https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/what-does-the-catholic-church-teach-us-about-palliative-care/