The Church’s Teaching on

Feeding Tubes for People in

a Permanent Vegetative State

I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality, which in the present case consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering.

Excerpted from the Address of John Paul II to the Participants in the International Congress on ‘Life-Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State: Scientific Advances and Ethical Dilemmas’ on March 4, 2004

According to Pope John Paul II, in his address above, the administration of food and water to a person in a vegetative state is required in almost all cases. Therefore, it can be said that: in the majority of cases, it is a mortal sin to remove a feeding tube or deny water! The Holy Father teaches that giving someone food and water is not a medical act and therefore is not in the same category as drugs or treatments that are prescribed or recommended by a doctor. It does not matter whether the food and water are provided by natural means (eating and drinking) or by artificial means (a feeding tube.) The person may be totally dependent upon someone else to provide nutrition and hydration, but that does not mean it is optional.

The main exception, in which it is permissible to remove a feeding tube, is when the body shuts-downs and can no longer take up the nutrition and water. It just sits in the stomach and is not absorbed. This what the Holy Father means when he spoke about the ‘proper finality.’

Understanding this Catholic principle is very important, because of the recent Terry Shiavo case. Many, who wished to save Terry, lamented that she did not have a ‘living will,’ that is a legal document that stated her intentions for medical care when incapacitated. Terry’s parents argued that because she was a Catholic so she would not have wanted the feeding tube removed. The courts rejected this argument. They want a living will stating the persons intentions.

According to the Pope’s teaching, a living will instructing that water and nutrition be cut off, if the person falls into a vegetative state, would be mortally sinful. A living will is not the solution in the Shiavo case, or any case like it. The solution is in the Catholic Church Teaching that food and water are to be administrated until the body can no longer use them.

Living wills in and of themselves are not mortally sinful. A person is not required to undergo extraordinary treatments and a living will can say so. Some examples of extraordinary treatments are: kidney dialysis, chemotherapy, a ventilator, open heart surgery.

Many have been confused on this issue and, hopefully, this helps clarify the Church’s Teaching.