Here is my column from today on the Schiavo situation.
I've taken a call this morning from a reader who says the judge wasn't "run off." I believe that people can be run off or kicked out without being expressly asked to leave a church. Feeling like a church is no longer a friendly place is a painful thing. But, I leave that point open for debate.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
"4) Why is removing a feeding tube any different than removing a ventilator?"
It seems very different to me. When a ventilator or machine that is artifically pumping the heart is removed, sometimes the patient continues to breathe or to have a heartbeat on their own. If they don't, then they were already "dead". Their body was functioning only by a machine.
Someone on a feeding tube is not already dead since their heart is beating and they are breathing.
If being unable to eat on our own is the same as having our breathing or hearts artificially kept functioning then we can kill an infant or many of the elderly at will since they can't feed themselves.
The feeding tube definitely crosses a line from what used to be known as "pulling the plug" which meant stopping machines that breathed for us or squeezed our hearts.
Post a Comment