After a decision from the Supreme Court on July 30, 2018 on terminating treatment for dying patients, it is now the British Medical Association’s turn to publish its guidelines for doctors allowing them to terminate artificial nutrition and hydration for patients with degenerative diseases.
According to these preliminary propositions, doctors should have the power to end the lives not only of patients in a vegetative or semi-conscious condition, but also of patients with comorbidities, frailty or degenerative neurological troubles.
These new guidelines apply to “patients who have a recognized degenerative condition – such as advanced dementia, Parkinson’s or Huntington’s disease – as well as potentially stroke patients and those with rapidly progressing brain injury.”
Currently, roughly 850,000 people are estimated to have dementia in Great Britain, and that figure is expected to surpass 1,000,000 by 2025.
The Catholic Church maintains that “The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life” and must be provided even for patients “in a permanent vegetative state.” The corporal works of mercy are the only answer to the merchants of death and the inhumanity of our profoundly de-Christianized societies.
