Not content with being Bart Stupak's puppet-masters, pulling the strings to strip all abortion coverage out of healthcare reform, end all of their social service programs in DC if the city goes forward with a proposed gay marriage law, refusing communion to Catholics because of their political beliefs, the Bishops have outdone themselves on this one. David Dayen reports:
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops released an "Ethical and Religious Directive" this month that would ban any Catholic hospital, nursing home or hospice program from removing feeding tubes or ending palliative procedures of any kind, even when the individual has an advance directive to guide their end-of-life care. The Bishops’ directive even notes that patient suffering is redemptive and brings the individual closer to Christ....
[T]he Church has staked out a radical position on end-of-life care, without patients of the 565 Catholic hospitals and other Catholic care facilities even knowing about it. As Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group, put it, "When a patient goes to one of these facilities, they don’t know that they’re choosing Catholic dogma. The bishops see the hospitals as an extension of their ministry."
The "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services" put out by the Catholic bishops would build upon a Papal elocution given in the wake of the controversial Terri Schiavo case, where the US Congress stepped in to keep Schiavo alive despite her persistent vegetative state and the wishes of her husband to end care. The papal elocution did state that the permanently unconscious should always have access to a feeding tube, but it did not have the force of doctrinal law behind it. "There was always some wiggle room" for Catholic care facilities, said Coombs Lee. Catholics were allowed to use something called a "benefit/burden balance" to determine the ethical, moral and compassionate result in any individual case.
Now, that wiggle room is gone. In the new directive, the bishops state that it is unethical and immoral to withhold or withdraw a feeding tube from patients, whether in cases of permanent unconsciousness, comas, or even cases of advanced dementia when the patient is unable to feed themselves....
In many cities, this means that every hospital or medical care facility will not allow the withdrawal of a feeding tube. "In Spokane, Washington, if you don’t get Catholic health care, you don’t get health care," Coombs Lee said. "In Eugene, Oregon, if you don’t get Catholic health care, you don’t get health care." Coombs Lee characterized it as a kind of entrapment, with a sense of "my house, my rules." If a patient’s family wanted to comply with an advance directive, they would have to leave the Catholic care facility, adding a level of stress and disruption to the already difficult time of aggrievement. "Decisions on feeding tubes are hard enough without adding this extra adversity," said Coombs Lee.
Coombs Lee believes that this could create "300,000 Terri Schiavo cases," the number being equal to the number of feeding tubes inserted in the United States each year.
It's not just Spokane, or Eugene where you won't have an option. Many cities and rural communities, particularly in the mid-West and mountain West, only have Catholic hospitals and nursing homes. The Bishops' directive isn't just operative for Catholic receiving care, but for anyone admitted to a Catholic facility. To my non-lawyer's eye, that would fall under "religious discrimination." Since the Bishops have decided to take such a direct, political role in this issue, in the DC gay marriage issue, and in healthcare legislation, maybe it's time for Congress and the government to decide whether they should stop providing federal dollars to these institutions.