- "The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life. It is therefore obligatory to the extent to which, and for as long as, it is shown to accomplish its proper finality, which is the hydration and nourishment of the patient. In this way suffering and death by starvation and dehydration are prevented....
- "A patient in a 'permanent vegetative state' is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means."
This past Thursday, I spoke with the USCCB's...Pro Life Activities and ...Doctrine. I expressed dismay that "Ethical & Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, 4th Ed" (ERDs) <www.usccb.org/bishops/directives.shtml> has not been updated & remains posted on the USCCB web site with this section full intact....
- "Some state Catholic conferences, individual bishops, & the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities (formerly an NCCB committee) have addressed the moral issues concerning medically assisted hydration & nutrition....These statements agree that hydration & nutrition are not morally obligatory either when they bring no comfort to a person who is imminently dying or when they cannot be assimilated by a person's body. The USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities' report, in addition, points out the necessary distinctions between questions already resolved by the magisterium & those requiring further reflection, as, for example, the morality of withdrawing medically assisted hydration & nutrition from a person who is in the condition that is recognized by physicians as the 'persistent vegetative state' (PVS)" (from Part 5, "Issues in Care for the Dying", Introduction).
Please join me in asking the USCCB to update the ERDs or, at minimum, to remove this outdated material from the internet. 
