Media Confusion About Proposed Baby Euthanasia in the UK
The Sunday Times has a story about the Church of England supposedly endorsing infant euthanasia in the wake of the proposal to permit infanticide of severely disabled babies. As you can imagine, that caught my eye! But upon reading the story, it appears that the Church has ratified the right to withdraw life-sustaining treatment in some circumstances, which is a different matter altogether.
Thankfully, the Christian Medical Fellowship, part of the diverse coalition known as Care Not Killing that helped prevent the legalization of assisted suicide in the UK this year, was not confused. Dr. Peter Saunders, who I have met and who knows these issues cold, made the right point in The Guardian: "If it's an underlying condition that's causing the death and you're withholding the treatment because you believe that that treatment's burden far outweighs any benefit it can bring, then it might be quite appropriate."
Withholding life-sustaining treatment is not the same thing at all as active killing, a distinction that The Economist editorial writers understood when it unfortunately endorsed infanticide as a respectable issue worthy of being debated: "Withholding or withdrawing treatment is already legal in some situations--if the child will remain severely impaired, or is brain-dead or suffering unbearable pain, for example. Active euthanasia would allow doctors to go further by, for instance, using morphine to hasten the end of a brief, pain-filled life, if the parents agreed."
The Times needs to do better. As we have seen so many times in the embryonic stem cell/cloning controversy, it is crucial for the media to keep the terms and definitions straight when discussing ethically contentious issues. Proper moral analysis requires people to draw crucial distinctions. This cannot possibly be done without accurate and clear information, the providing of which is part of the essential role media play in democratic societies.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 12:33 PM
8 Comments
8 Comments:
Ah, yes. Silly me. However, I also think ignorance plays into it as well.
This is why I painstakingly ask you questions for clarification. I think word confusion goes a long way here.
Euthanasia v. LST withdraw - the line between them is semantical. Similarly to "cloning" - although the term does technically include both reproductive and the therapeutic varieties, society is far more afraid of reproductive cloning than therapeutic ones. However, in the media (and sometimes on this website), they are often lumped together, which I think is unfair, as it mixes the concepts and hence, the fears behind them.
But yes, vocabulary DOES matter.
Royale: I don't know if you live in the USA, but the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the distinction is real and morally relevant in Vacco v. Quill, 1997. The Vacco case was one of two that found unanimously that there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide.
I am aware and it is semantics.
Case in point - Terri Schiavo. It was the removal of LST. Some argued it was "murder" or even euthanasia, others argued it fell under the umbrella of the Vacco case.
Both are right, depending on one's choice of vocabulary.
Which is why I keep insisting that accurate terms be used and proper definitions. Thank you.
I agree that unlike the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Church of England(CofE) is not advocating active euthanasia. However, the CofE's failure to be very specific in their statement and the media's lumping of the CofE statement with that of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists led to the confusion. Specifically, the CofE did not make clear that it did not endorse the removal of comfort measures or basic hydration/nutrition. Their statement leaves open the possibility to consider the underlying "quality of life" assessment in deciding whether treatment is indicated which could be interpreted as permitting severely disabled newborns to starve to death. This is a far cry from the Royal Obstetricians who are advocating infanticide as a viable alternative to abortion. However,depriving a newborn or any other human being of basic nutrition and hydration because their "quality of life" is not up to par is euthanasia. The Church of England must clarify what it is advocating.
Agreed, Catholic Mom. Also note that the church suggested that the decision need not be exclusively patient-based but also involve costs. That is very unlike my understanding of the Catholic Church's position that keeps the focus (correct me if I am wrong, anyone) on the patient him or herself.
Yes, removing nutrition and hydration _must_ be kept in a different category. We're all on "life support" if food and water are life support. There's nothing magical about either an NG tube or a stomach tube. They aren't "life support." They are just ways of getting food and water into the digestive system. And (note) they are often used for reasons of convenience in patient care when the patient can swallow but where it is feared that spoon feeding alone--being slow, tedious, and a bit chancy--would not get the person enough nutrition and hydration. This by itself demonstrates that we aren't talking about "life support." No one is put on a ventilator or kidney dialysis for convenience in patient care!
One problem with this practice (of inserting feeding tubes on patients who can swallow) is that the swallowing muscles will eventually atrophy if not used, leaving the patient completely dependent on tube feeding when he wasn't before. That (since someone _had_ to bring up Terri Schiavo) looks like it is what happened with her, because she was receiving spoon feeding for some time after her accident and before her husband demanded tube feeding.
It seems to me that the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration until death is _exactly_ what has left us open to suggestions of active infanticide. Dying over 14 days of slow dehydration is an unpleasant process for everyone involved, and when water and food are deliberately withheld until death from a person who could process them, it is indeed a form of deliberate killing. It is no surprise that, having accepted this and allowing it to become more and more common in both the U.S. and UK medical systems, we now find calls going out for more "merciful," quick, and direct forms of euthanasia.
If the C of E was tacitly endorsing terminal dehydration, they are much to blame for this "confusion," which casts a sinister light on them.
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