("Breaking...Usual Practice") Vatican Ethicist Weighs in on Schiavo Case

[truthpusher]

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-vatican-ethics,0,2780617.story?coll=nyc-nationhome-headlines

Vatican Ethicist Weighs in on Schiavo Case
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By Associated Press
March 11, 2005, 10:39 PM EST
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VATICAN CITY -- Removing the feeding tube from a brain-damaged Florida woman would be "a pitiless way to kill," the Vatican's point man on bioethical issues said Friday, breaking what he called the church's usual practice of not weighing in on individual cases.

(snip)

Monsignor Elio Sgreccia said on Vatican Radio that the Holy See's Pontifical Academy for Life generally does not intervene in specific cases, but Schiavo's case "goes beyond the individual situation because of its exemplary character."

(snip)

"By any decent count, Mrs. Terri Schiavo can be considered a living human being, deprived of full conscience, whose legal rights must be recognized, respected and defended. The removal of the feeding tube from this person, in these conditions, can be considered direct euthanasia.

"As far as we're concerned, impeding someone access to food and water represents a pitiless way to kill that person," Sgreccia said.

Complete Story:
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-vatican-ethics,0,2780617.story?coll=nyc-nationhome-headlines

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DBoon]

2. Did the Vatican pay for all the children

born due to the practice of "Catholic birth control"?

[moobu2]

3. The Vatican has been manipulating this case for over a year

So it's a little misleading for them to say they "generally does not intervene in specific cases"

[truthpusher]

5. I just added quotes....

...to the 'Breaking Usual Practice" line to emphasize that this was stated by the Vatican.

[burrowowl]

4. When I was young

(long time ago) EXTRAORDINARY MEANS TO KEEP SOMEONE ALIVE WERE OPTIONAL. Iguess nowadays feeding tubes etc. are no longer EXTRAORDINARY.
John Paul II should have resigned long ago.
When will we get a John XXIII again?
Edit to add: if the starving is 'too' grizzly, way not just enough morphine to kill the pain, which kills the person in some instances. Those feed bags cost around $1,500, my dad was given a couple.

[loudsue]

11. burrowowl, I TOTALLY agree. Depriving a person of WATER is horrific

Just try to go without food and water for 2 days, and see what happens to your mind. It's being deprived of water that really makes you CRAZY... and I don't use that term lightly. By the 4th day without water, your body joins your mind in being crazy. It's the most inhumane, horrible torture that any person can go through.

I'm speaking from experience here.

The food becomes SOOOO secondary to the water. Yes, you get hungry, but LONG before the hunger really hurts, the dehydration has already made your electric system (in your body -- and your mind is one PRIMARY electrical system) start going berserk...totally haywire, and it is horrifically painful: MENTALLY, emotionally, and physically.

Morphine is a good thing. Give the person enough morphine to put 'em down, ANY DAY, but FOR GOD'S SAKE, DON'T let them die of dehydration!!!!

:kick::kick::kick:

[daleo]

6. Hold the Vatican to this:

Feeding tubes and respirators for the pope! Don't let him go, even if the Church has to go through 15 plus years of his "leadership" in these circumstances. In fact, cell cultures could be taken from his body now, and be kept alive indefinitely. He could "live" forever, even without the benefit of most or all of his brain that way.

For the record, this is very dark sarcasm.

[burrowowl]

7. Not that dark

not that dark. I could get darker.

[still_one]

8. do they have any comments on

covering up molesting children for over fifty years?

[Sandpiper]

9. How humane and magnanimous of Monsignor Sgreccia

To fight for the right of Terri Schiavo to live as an empty shell of a human being, sustained only by artificial means, to remain so until such time as her organs fail.

Jeebus bless you Monsignor for your principled stand.

:puke:

[kskiska]

10. Hasn't the Vatican also weighed in on capital punishment,

even begging for a prisoner's life in Texas? It's also weighed in on the war in Iraq. No one listened then. Why is the Vatican relevant all of a sudden?