Assisted Nutrition and Hydration and the Catholic Tradition

Abstract

[Whether or not it is morally permissible to discontinue artificial nutrition and hydration in severely brain-damaged patients was hotly debated this year in the case of Terri Schiavo. Our article focuses on how the Catholic tradition has addressed this kind of dilemma over the last 25 years. It recognizes four unacknowledged shifts concerned with: (1) the method of reasoning about our moral obligations; (2) the general context of construing our obligations to seek medical interventions; (3) the presumption to use artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH); and (4) our normative obligation to use ANH.]