Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Tolerance testing Chicago, 111. To the Editors: Regarding your editorial, "A Tumor Deeply Lodged" [ December 26]: Surrounded by blasted hopes from the right and from the left,...
...What is at stake here is what I argued in my article, namely, that we must take into consideration in our decision-making the burden of the kind of life that will accrue to the patient as a result of artificial feeding...
...African Institute Notre Dame's eighteenth program for Christians preparing to serve in Africa...
...But, (1) It becomes something else when this picketing is part of an organized campaign coordinated with a threatening letter from the Attorney General, on betialf of his mickey-mouse Pornography Commission, asking the directors of various chains whether, by chance, they sell such and such magazines, and whether they intend to continue doing so...
...Neither of these conditions was present with Ms...
...Thus, euthanasia in a moral sense always denotes the intent to kill the patient...
...WILLIAM C. DOWLING Master director Darien, 111...
...It is misleading, for example, to insinuate that the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) is representative solely of diaspora Jews...
...Gordon's fine fury does, it seem to me, get at some things Garvey's carefully-balanced argument leaves out...
...Call 1-800-633-2252...
...Priesthood DESIRE PRIESTHOOD...
...This is what 1 meant by a "quality of life" consideration...
...It is equally misleading to speak of "Jewish demands for ever new confessions of guilt" from the churches...
...IJCIC's immediate past chair was an Israeli, Professor Shemeryahu Talmon of Hebrew University...
...I used the word "euthanasia" to distinguish clearly the withdrawal or refusal of artificial nutrition from the moral act of euthanasia...
...Illustrations: Cover, Mitro - Ta Nea, pp...
...no, they will speak out, and when they do, they speak the most awful rot...
...Thus, in my opinion the court decision to permit the withdrawal of artificial nutrition from Conroy was basically correct, just as the decision on the part of the physicians and hospital administrators not to aid Bouvia in her act of selfdestruction was correct...
...These are, however, simply the essential elements, in action, of the love we profess to have for them...
...Second-class postage paid at New York...
...Of course they have the right to do that too, just as they have the right to dress up as giant chickens and drop their trousers on national television...
...The answer to this question was given by Judge Arnold Stein in the samt Jobes case discussed by T. Patrick Hill and attorney Paul Armstrong in the interview immediately following Walter's essay...
...She appears to make intermittent, purposeful use of the meager remaining functions of her nervous system...
...I take my purchase to the counter, where I encounter a slatternly sales-girl wearing over her left breast a button bearing some labored double-entendre involving the word 'it.' Behind her are displays of rubbers, vaginal lubricants, feminine hygiene sprays, papers for rolling marijuana cigarettes, pipes for smoking concentrated cocaine, a poster of the leader of a rock-group named 'Kiss' vomiting blood on stage, and samples of the Garbage Pail Kids, a line of ugly and semi-deformed dolls designed to capitalize on the natural cruelty of children...
...Walter's gentle suggestion that opposition to elective starvation springs from a fixation on technology or a failure adequately to consider the patient is, 1 believe, profoundly misplaced...
...Finally, I think that we must approach these cases with utmost caution...
...This person, I submit, is deranged...
...113, Rosen- Albany Times.p...
...Father Nigro Gonzaga University, Spokane 99258...
...When trying to perform certain requested movements, such as turning her head and wiggling her toes, her face took on an appearance that one associates with intense effort, followed by a look of satisfaction and excitement when she succeeded...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...680, three times...
...Letters of not more than 250 or 300 words naturally have a better chance of being published...
...The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in the basic attitude of physicians...
...The patient responds to verbal commands...
...Information: Prof Peter Walshe, Department of Government, University of Notre Dame, Indiana 46556...
...EUGENE J. FISHER Fury over porn Cincinnati, Ohio To the Editors: I thought John Garvey's * 'Tolerance Limits'' [September 26 ] was 27 February 1987: 125 the single best thing I've ever read on the pornography question, and so I sent a sort of recapitulation of Garvey's main points to my friend John Gordon, with whose views on pornography I've disagreed somewhat over the years...
...640, six times...
...So thedlogy is by no means the wholly irrelevant category that Freidmann would have us believe it to be...
...that all acts of refusal or withdrawal of artificial food and water are performed with the aim of killing the patient...
...In fact, I fear that making loose comparisons between the "attitudinal shift'' which has taken place in this counCommonweal welcomes letters on subjects treated in its pages...
...Whether in others or in oneself this dastardly defense deprives the personality of its right to free and open inquiry...
...William C. Dowling, JAMESON, ALTHUSSER, MARX...
...She follows the movements of a person with her eyes...
...To the Editors: In "Food & Water: an Ethical Burden" (November 21], Professor James Walter concludes his commentary on the Brophy case by asking, "If we allow 'quality of life' judgments, how and where do we draw the line to prevent ourselves from slipping down the slope into the euthanasia of severely handicapped patients who are conscious...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 0010-3330...
...But I wish they wouldn't...
...John Connery, I believe that Kopelman judged wisely...
...Many of the patients who are in a persistent vegetative state, and many of those who are minimally conscious, do not have family to plead their best interests...
...From tWispatient-centered perspective, ignoring issues of social cost or family inconvenience, he refused to authorize Brophy's starvation...
...As I understand the medical-moral literature on euthanasia, the word means to perform an action to bring about the death of a patient or to refuse or withdraw medical treatment unjustifiably...
...In Brophy, Judge David Kopelman found that the benefits of food and fluids (which at a minimum include continued life) outweighed the associated burdens (which, from the most exclusively patient-centered perspective, must be zero if Brophy is truly vegetative) of such care...
...but I emphasize that most studies on the subject specifically distinguish severe disability from the vegetative state," said Allan H. Ropper, M.D., Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School and Director of Neurology and Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital...
...Copyright © 1987 Commonweal Foundation...
...Professor Walter's question is accordingly not hypothetical, but (already) historical: the legal and medical communities in this society have already overshot any line that might prevent us from starving severely handicapped but conscious individuals...
...The International Liaison Committee (ILC), then, quite properly focuses on the relationship between the church and the whole Jewish people, including the Jews of Israel...
...Now someone walks in and on behalf of some group or other demands that, in the name of common decency, the proprietor stop stocking magazines with photos of naked women...
...126: Commonweal...
...Moreover, considering her extreme motor incapacity, it is conceivable that her awareness is considerably greater than we can measure," said Maurice Victor, M.D., Professor of Neurology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine...
...Faculty: Elizabeth Achtemeier, Paul Achtemeier, Joseph Agius, Peter Ellis, Wilfrid Harrington...
...103 & 108, Paul Valerry...
...It is a masterpiece...
...Many of the witnesses testifying against starvation at the Brophy and Jobes trials have seen the results of such (Continued on page 123) Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest and Book Review Index...
...To the Editors: Regarding your editorial, "A Tumor Deeply Lodged" [ December 26]: Surrounded by blasted hopes from the right and from the left, from both political and religious organizations, it is becoming increasingly difficult to know to what to apply one's allegiance...
...The barriers against killing are coming down...
...The American Jewish Committee also maintains an office in Israel...
...MARK sellers Patients & patience Worcester, Mass...
...2) These people by and large aren't content to stop buying their wares at such and such places...
...Likewise, Friedmann might want to read the two volumes of papers from the NCCB consultations with the Synagogue Council of America (E...
...Both patients fit into the general category of the severely handicapped and conscious, but Conroy was dying, and her ability to pursue and attain values beyond biological existence was essentially non-existent...
...To the Editors: Tom O'Brien's interview with Alain Cavalier [December 26], the creator and director of the film, Therese, was just excellent...
...One recalls that Agnew's supporters were in the habit of say ing that, after all, he was just exercising his constitutional right to speak out, just like any other citizen...
...And it is a fact that anti-Semitic acts tended to increase dramatically throughout European history during Holy Week...
...However, I am not at all convinced that Derr's allusions to "Hitler's death camps" are helpful as we attempt to discern the public policy which should guide our decisionmaking...
...COMMONWEAL, 15 Dutch St., NYC 10038...
...It is odd that Friedmann would accuse the dialogue of being unaware of "the problem of human survival" immediately after citing the Vatican Notes' moving plea for joint social action for justice and peace...
...The themes he raises have, in fact, been taken up in various ILC meetings, though surely the problems remain and much more effort is urgently needed...
...In my experience, such calls for repentance have emanated from Catholic circles, such as the bishops of Germany, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray of France, or the Catholic religious communities of Israel, not from Jewish organizations...
...But as I observe ever more vigilantly the practices of our society, I know one thing that I cannot accept: lies...
...Phone: (219) 232-0743 or 2397312...
...14851-0250...
...Third, I detect in Derr's response an assumption that because a patient is conscious at some minimal level, that this life is sacred and thus in need of preservation in all cases...
...p. 112, RitaCorbin;p...
...Just as properly, matters of state diplomacy between the Holy See and the State of Israel will continue to be handled by the Vatican Secretariat of State...
...Then, shaking his head, this great physician and ethician offered his final comment on contemporary American medicine: "It is much like Germany in the twenties and thirties...
...Surely, there is a real distinction between a Claire Conroy, who was a minimally conscious 84-year-old nursing home resident suffering from irreversible physical and mental impairments, and an Elizabeth Bouvia, who had requested her physicians to help her starve herself to death because she no longer wanted to endure the handicap that she had lived under since birth...
...As I understand Derr, he believes that my argument is misplaced because we, as a society, have already failed to prevent the euthanasia of conscious patients who are severely handicapped...
...Broadly speaking, I think that some conscious patients like Conroy are in fact dying, and most probably we are only prolonging their dying by inserting a gastrostomy tube...
...Bouvia...
...A.) concerning the proper care of these patients and the shift in attitude v/hich took place in the early years of Nazi Germany will only engage people's viscera and not their brains...
...115, Jim Dobbins, Manchester Union Leader, p. 117, Bas - Tachydromos: p. 119, Al Ross, Rothco...
...Everyone should see it Twice...
...One remembers the days of Spiro Agnew, when on Wednesday the veep would make a speech about radic-lib media, and on Thursday the F.C.C., responding to 'popular demand,' would put the arm on some inconvenient station...
...Write: Sister Miriam Ward...
...james }. Walter Jerusalem & Rome Washington, D.C...
...Leo Alexander, chief medical consultant for the medical section of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, concluded his study of the moral degeneration of German medicine thus: "Whatever proportions these crimes finally assumed, it became evident to all who investigated them that they had started from small beginnings...
...The book rack consists mainly, judging from the covers, of incitements to mayhem and sado-masochisic lust...
...Rather than extending their dying, we ought to learn how to make them more comfortable while they spend their last days or hours with us...
...3) I go into, say, the local 'Store 24.' Twisted Sister or Barry Manilow are being played at loud volume in the background...
...She reacts to pain with a facial grimace," said Pavle Topalovic, M.D., an attending physician...
...It is not a documentary, nor is it propaganda...
...I think such an assumption begs the question...
...Finally, I am interested in the way Professor Friedmann has posed the perennial question of the relationship between church teaching and practice, a question which was not central to my mind when I wrote the paper he kindly cites...
...In this country, such concerns have been central to the dialogue for some time, as a perusal of the list of topics of the National Workshops on Christian-Jewish Relations over the years will readily show...
...It stifles the individual while falsely promising to promote the good of all...
...She was able to fixate her gaze on me and on other persons who approached her bed...
...Biblical Institute 22nd Biblical Institute, Trinity College, Burlington, VT 05401, June 21-26, 1987...
...To the Editors: Professor F.G...
...Disingenuous is the word for this line...
...In the case of food and fluids, we encounter an ethical barrier that must never again be allowed to fall...
...What Jews do require from us, and with good reason, is that we mend our ways, stamp out all vestiges of anti-Semitism from our midst, and show understanding of and concern for their deepest aspirations and fears...
...monthly in advance for more than three times...
...The newspaper rack contains two newspapers — one from New York and one from Boston — run by Rupert Murdoch...
...It is not a happy one...
...On the other hand, in Italy where papal canon law was most consistently enforceable because the pope was head of state, there were relatively few pogroms or other instances of mass violence against Jews over the centuries, which would indicate that church teaching which prohibited such measures as forced baptism can have a real effect...
...Patrick g derr The author replies: Professor Derr's response to my article on withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration from patients in a persistent vegetative state indicates again how disagreements over this sensitive issue can arise...
...If artificial hydration and nutrition can be classified as medical technology, then their refusal or with27 February 1987: 123 drawal need not at all be aimed at the death of the patient, but can be, as I argued in my article, "objective assessments of not only the limits of our abilities to heal but also of our limits to control the time of a person's death...
...Packages of addictive carcinogens are displayed and promoted beside the check-out counter...
...Like Rev...
...Now, Derr implies in his quotation from Dr...
...It also contains some inaccuracies...
...She is able to perceive and react to emotional stimuli as well as to noxious ones...
...The cereal section consists mainly of boxes of fibrous nuggets of refined sugar packaged in a way calculated to appeal irresistibly to children, who have been repeatedly urged by the same television which has already zombified them beyond repair to demand them from their parents...
...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Wooster, Ohio 44691...
...She is severely disabled...
...8 June — 1 July 1987...
...6.95 + 1.00 postage, Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts PI., Ithaca, N.Y...
...In the face of these expert medical evaluations, which suggest that Nancy Ellen Jobes was at least "conscious," Judge Stein ruled that she might be denied food and fluids, and so permitted to die of dehydration or starvation...
...Classified payable with order...
...Briefly, I think I would see a much closer relationship between theory and praxis in church history than Professor Friedmann would seemingly allow, though it is true that theory on some occasions follows praxis, as in the surges of anti-Jewish atrocities in medieval times, as if to rationalize misdeeds already done...
...Book MYSTIFIED BY DECONSTRUCTION, Structuralism, "Neo-Marxism...
...It is not scandalous or blasphemous...
...Some months before his death in July of 1984, Leo Alexander asked a visitor whether he had read an article in the New England Journal of Medicine defending the non-feeding of patients like Paul Brophy...
...Though I cannot answer all the questions Derr raises, I would like to address some of the underlying assumptions of his response...
...98: Commonweal CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 98) an attitudinal shift in medicine at first hand: Doctors Sullivan, Field, and Victor all saw Hitler's death camps from the inside...
...I, unlike Professor Derr, believe that we can discover real distinctions where they truly exist, but I do not think, as Derr seems to believe, that the best policy to curb abuse is to refuse to enter into this discovery by erecting an "ethical barrier that must never again be allowed to fall...
...It started with the acceptance of the attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived...
...Vocation certain...
...124: Commonweal try over the past few years (e.g., the president's commission and the A.M...
...Consider the medical reports on Nancy Ellen Jobes's status: "She responds to touch and sound stimuli...
...First, the question that I raised towards the end of my article was more carefully posed than Professor Derr possibly realized...
...How else...
...CLASSIFIED RATES: 750 a word, one time...
...They are the building blocks of trust, not some kind of manipulative guilt trip...
...Theologically, life, even conscious life, is not the highest good, and thus it does not need to be preserved under any and all conditions...
...Leo Alexander ("The barriers against killing are coming down...
...Friedmann's article ["The Vatican, Israel & Holy Zion," September 26] raises several important issues...
...Her EEG record is significant because it is not severely abnormal...
...p. 110, photo from CREhD...
...Of the five organizations that make up IJCIC, one is Israeli and two others, B'nai B'rith and World Jewish Congress, have Israeli sections...
...Anyway, his essay and Gordon's response add up to the best thing I've read on pornography in a good while...
...Refusal to tolerate lies is the only thing around which we can and must rally...
...This is what I got back from Gordon: "Yes, of course people have the right to picket stores that sell pornographic magazines, exercising their constitutional rights and all...
...BEN HOGAN, O. CARM...
...It was clear that the patient was able to hear and that she could make a number of purposeful movements in direct response to a request or command...
...Second, Derr's response appears to assume that we cannot make proper distinctions among those who are severely handicapped and conscious...
...Fisher and D. Polish, eds., The Formation of Social Policy in the Catholic and Jewish Traditions, University of Notre Dame Press, 1980, 1983...
...Soldier of Fortune, a magazine which until recently carried classified advertisements for hired murderers and which continues to provide instructions on how to obtain silencers or rig up semi-automatic weapons, sits between Money and Glamour in the magazine rack...
...It was wonderful to learn the background to this marvelous film...
...The problem isn't really censorship . . . The problem is that one is asked to submit to the tastes of people who watch the 700 Club and hang paintings of clowns on the knotty-pine walls of their dens...
Vol. 114 • February 1987 • No. 4
