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Schiavo case may influence our laws
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| By By Marilyn Rodrigues
3 April, 2005 |
The tragic slow death of Terri Schiavo in Florida after the removal of a feeding tube may be morally akin to active euthanasia, says Sydney Bishop Anthony Fisher.
The case of the brain-damaged Mrs Schiavo, has gained world attention, “partly because of the human tragedy”, he said.
And, because the US is a leader of world opinion, the case could “influence the direction of laws everywhere”.
As The Catholic Weekly went to press, the death of 41-year-old Terri Schiavo from starvation and dehydration was regarded as imminent.
Her life-giving feeding tube was removed on March 18 on a Florida judge’s order.
Bishop Fisher, a bioethicist and former lawyer, said that even though American legal cases are not binding precedents here, because the US is a leader of world opinion, important American cases can influence laws elsewhere.
He pointed to a tendency in many jurisdictions in recent years, including in Victoria, for courts to allow the non-treatment and even the non-feeding of people who are thought by others to be “better off dead”.
Justice Stuart Morris ruled in the Victorian Supreme Court in 2003 that food and hydration given artificially is a form of medical treatment rather than palliative care and therefore could be refused under the Victorian Medical Treatment Act.
Bishop Fisher said: “There is a real risk of euthanasia by neglect of reasonable care becoming an accepted practice in our community despite our rejection, through our laws and medical ethics, of more active forms of euthanasia.
“Morally there may be very little difference, and the practice of euthanasia-by-starvation now may be a prelude to euthanasia-by-poisoning later.
“The important thing for us as a Catholic community is to keep insisting that every human being, no matter how disabled, is an image of God, the bearer of human dignity, and entitled to basic care such as feeding and hydration, even if that requires some medical or nursing assistance,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean that we should do everything possible to extend life indefinitely: some measures would be futile; others would be too burdensome for the patient.
“If people are dying, other kinds of care may well be called for instead.
“But we should never judge that another person would be ‘better off dead’ or that we would be better off if they were dead, and then decide to starve them to death.”
Dr Brigid Vout, exective officer of the archdiocesan Life Office, said that “under these circumstances where the provision of food and water is neither futile nor overly burdensome, it should be part of the ordinary care of a human person”.
Terri was severely disabled but had not been dying. “Providing her with food and water via her gastrostomy tube was not causing her to suffer,” she said.
Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube has been removed and reinserted twice before, once after the personal intervention of Governor Jeb Bush.
She suffered brain damage 15 years ago.
Her husband has said she would not wish to be kept alive.
Her parents have called for hospital care to continue, even indicating their belief - before the removal of the feeding tube - that she could be rehabilitated.
Bishop Fisher says the fight over her fate has been an “unseemly” public tussle with “people on all sides claiming law and ethics and good social policy are on their side”.
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