Correspondence Moral balancing acts
ROYLE, PATRICK J. & DORFF, FRANCIS & GROSHONG, MIKE
CORRESPONDENCE To the Editors Wrong on Schiavo Your editorial on the Terri Schiavo case ("Allowing to Die," November 7), misrepresents Catholic teaching on end-of-life care. The church teaches...
...Has artificially keeping Terri Schiavo alive for thirteen years been a self-evident benefit to her...
...What we have now is the result of a long, historical process...
...PATRICK J. BOYLE, SJ Mundelein, III...
...On gay marriage Gregory Maguire's moving reflections on life as a gay father ("A Gay Parent Looks at His Church," October 24) both complement Edward Collins Vacek's lucid overview of the question in the same issue ("The Meaning of Marriage") and take it a step further...
...If, on the other hand, the medical treatment does not cause grave burdens and is beneficial, the sick person has no choice but to accept the medical treatment because it is ordinary means...
...As Richard McCormick, SJ, pointed out so clearly, "benefit to the patient refers not simply to sheer physical survival but to a level of human survival defined...
...In some cases it is inhumane to do so...
...The answers are no...
...and "Is it useless...
...Schiavo is fed by means of a gastrostomy tube...
...The label is arbitrarily applied, depending on time and culture...
...I appreciate the balanced and nu-anced approach to a very difficult issue...
...Albuquerque, N.Mex...
...Governor Jeb Bush's reasons for restoring her feeding tube could be suspect, but his decision to do so was within the parameters of Catholic teaching on end-of-life care...
...Those who lived in the country held tenaciously to "traditional" beliefs...
...If this is so, I find the comparison questionable...
...They are not the result of the feeding tube...
...The central question in the Schiavo case and similar cases (Karen Ann Quinlan, for example) is whether a particular and arguably extraordinary medical treatment constitutes a grave burden to the patient...
...FRANCIS DORFF, O. PRAEM...
...in terms of pain and freedom" (Notes on Moral Theology 1965-1980...
...I do have one criticism: I find Paul J. Griffiths's use of the words "pagan" and "Christian" ("Legalize Same-Sex Marriage") disturbing...
...The personalist ethic is deeply rooted in the sacred Scriptures and represents both a traditional and a contemporary Catholic ethical perspective...
...Most basically it is between an essentialist ethic and a personalist one, between unchangeable abstract notions of nature and sexuality and the real lives of gay Catholics struggling to live out their faith...
...The editors reply: Patrick J. Boyle, SJ, is right up to a point...
...The church teaches that the health condition of a sick person never enters into the decision whether to start or to withdraw life support...
...The decision, however, is for the individual's legal guardian to make, not for a governor or a legislature...
...most early Christians were urbanites...
...Christians & pagans Many thanks to Commonweal for the issue on same-sex marriage (October 24...
...The central question is whether the medical treatment causes grave burdens...
...My point is: Traditional belief is in the eye of the beholder...
...As many of the authors indicated, significant questions are not being addressed...
...mike groshong McMinnville, Ore...
...The basic tension here is not, as Vacek indicates, just between the clarity of an essentialist mindset and the ambiguity of a postmodern mindset...
...Such a reductive, physicalist understanding of benefit, pace Father Boyle, is not one the Catholic tradition embraces...
...The word "pagan" appears to be derived from "rural dweller...
...That teaching has never held there is an obligation to do "everything in my power to keep myself or others alive...
...In the first two centuries of the Common Era, Christianity was hardly traditional...
...If it does, then the treatment is considered extraordinary means and therefore the choice of the sick person...
...The church does not now practice the Christianity of the second century and can hardly be called traditional in that sense...
...Perhaps I misunderstood, but it seemed to me that Griffiths equated "Christian" with traditional Catholicism and "pagan" with everyone else...
...Admittedly, judging what constitutes a burden for someone who because of illness cannot make that decision for herself is more an art than a science...
...The questions to be asked are, "Does this medical procedure create grave burdens for her...
...Barring complications, it is a burdenless medical treatment and it is certainly beneficial, since it has been keeping Schiavo alive for some thirteen years...
...It is also the perspective from which Pope John Paul II often speaks and writes most persuasively as the pastor of a universal church that defines itself as a pilgrim people...
...Schiavo's burdens were caused by the brain damage resulting from her heart attack...
...If ethicist John F. Kavanaugh, SJ, is correct ("Food for Terri Schiavo," America, November 24), it is Boyle who misrepresents Catholic teaching on end-of-life care...
Vol. 130 • December 2003 • No. 21
