April 03, 2005

Requiescat in Pace, Pope John Paul II
by Liza Sabater

Google Search: Pope John Paul II is dead

Pope John Paul had at some point of his last hours, a feeding tube inserted through his nose. I was speculating about this decision with my husband last night. Nasal feeding tubes are used only temporarily. To have inserted such a tube on the Pope was clearly done with the intent to ease his death and not save his life to the point of keeping him in the limbo of a "persistent vegetative state".

Which means that some time within the past 72 hours that nasal feeding tube was taken out, and the Pope was left to die in peace yet with no sustenance.

The Pope had riled against the sin of "euthanasia by omission" years ago; but on the same breath he warned of trying to keep people alive at all costs --in other words, of playing God by not letting nature and God's will to take its course.

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Pope's health raises ethical questions

It was the Pope himself who re-opened the debate a year ago with remarks to a medical conference in Rome.

Speaking about the treatment of patients in a persistent vegetative state, he said that artificial feeding was "morally obligatory".

Providing food and water by tube was a natural means of preserving life, he argued, and not a medical act.

Furthermore, he warned doctors, the removal of feeding tubes would be "euthanasia by omission".

The Pope's words caused a stir in the medical world, particularly in the 600 Catholic-run hospitals in the United States.

Many doctors had assumed that it was permissible to withdraw such treatment where there was no hope of recovery.

The Pope's words also created doubts about the ability of Catholic doctors to comply with the terms of a "living will" in which the patient asks not to be resuscitated in the event of them slipping into a coma.

But while John Paul II defends the sanctity of human life, he has made it clear he is opposed to extreme measures being used to keep patients alive "at all costs".

"It is necessary to approach the ill with that healthy realism which avoids generating in those who suffer the illusion of medicine's omnipotence," he said in 2002.

I believe Terri Schiavo's state was brought about by people playing God. The circus around her death focused on Michael Schiavo and her parents; but nobody really has taken to task the doctors who played God by keeping her body alive at all costs in the first place.

Too many doctors have to be reminded over and over again they are not God and they are not above the laws of nature. Let the dead be dead. Even the Pope agreed with that.

Rest in Peace, Papa Gioavanni Paolo Secondo, and Godspeed.

Posted by Liza Sabater in Bio-Power, Body, Catholicism, Culture of Life, Ethics, Extremists, Health, Obituary, Privacy, Religion, Right To Die
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