Pope Declares the Removal of Feeding Tubes to be Immoral

In a no-brainer commentary to faithful Catholics across the world, Pope John Paul II announced that the removal of feeding tubes was indeed an immoral act that denied basic provision in terms of food and water:

The pope said even the medical terminology used to describe people in so-called “persistent vegetative states” was degrading to them. He said no matter how sick a person was, “he is and will always be a man, never becoming a ‘vegetable’ or ‘animal.'”

In a vegetative state, patients are awake but not aware of themselves or their environment. The condition is different from a coma, in which the patient is neither awake nor aware. Both, however, are states in which the patient is devoid of consciousness.

If the vegetative state continues for a month, the patient is said to be in a persistent vegetative state; after a year without improvement, the patient is said to be in a permanent vegetative state.

Providing food and water to such patients should be considered natural, ordinary and proportional care — not artificial medical intervention, the pope told members of the conference, which was organized by the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations and the Pontifical Academy for Life, a Vatican advisory body.

“As such, it is morally obligatory,” to continue such care, he said.

I’m sure many in the medical community (especially those who subscribe to Peter Singer’s version of ethics) will howl and ridicule the statement. But the Pope is right, and the larger question should be placed upon those who insist that the least among us should no longer qualify as lives worth living.