382 "PEOPLE SHOULD NOT DIE AT THE HAND OF ANOTHER PERSON BUT RATHER WITH ANOTHER PERSON AT HAND."

YOUCAT Lesson 382

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

382  Is it permissible to offer assistance in dying?

To bring about death directly is always against the commandment “You shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13).  In contrast, to stand by and assist a dying person is humane and even obligatory.  [2278-2279]

Caregiver of Alzheimer’s patient.  --Wikipedia photo  …..382

What really matters is whether a dying person is killed or allowed to die.  Someone who kills a dying person (euthanasia) breaks the Fifth Commandment.  Someone who helps another person in the dying process obeys the commandment “Love your neighbor.”  In view of the certain impending death of a patient, it is legitimate to withhold extraordinary or expensive medical procedures that are not proportionate to the expected outcome.  The patient himself must make the decision to forgo “extraordinary” measures or must have stated this intention in an advanced directive.  If he is no longer capable of doing so, those who are legally entitled must represent the express or probable wishes of the dying person.  Ordinary care of a dying person should never be discontinued; this is commanded by love of neighbor and mercy.  Meanwhile it can be legitimate and in keeping with human dignity to use painkillers, even at the risk of shortening the patient’s life.  The crucial thing is that the use of such medications must not aim at bringing about death, either as an end in itself or as a means of ending pain.  393

“People should not die at the hand of another person but rather with another person on hand.”  Former German President Horst Kohler

The hospice movement, not the euthanasia movement, is the answer to our situation that respects human dignity.  The forces of imagination and solidarity are mobilized to confront the gigantic problems that we are facing only when the cheap way out is relentlessly barred.  When dying is not understood as part of life, that is the beginning of the civilization of death.”  Robert Spaemann (b. 1927)

“You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.”  Didache 2,2, third century

“Christians…marry and have children like other people, but they do not expose their newborns.”  Letter to Diognetus third century

“Abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.”  Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes

[2278-2279]

Euthanasia

2278 Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "over-zealous" treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged. --CCC