Abstract
Is palliative care simply euthanasia by another name, or “stealth euthanasia,” as some have called it? Is there any legitimacy to the concerns these individuals raise and to the observations they make that lead them to this conclusion, a conclusion that unfortunately can plant seeds of doubt about and even undermine one of the desired hallmarks of Catholic health care and even imperil good, holistic care of sick and dying persons? Are their claims the equivalent of the canary in the coalmine? Are they signaling significant dangers in palliative care and hospice that call for vigilance and possible corrective actions? In what follows, I will examine the claims being made about palliative care and hospice being stealth euthanasia, the legitimacy of these claims, and their implications for palliative care and hospice in Catholic health care.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The NHPCO is not (at least currently) listed as a member of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies as claimed by Panzer. See, for the listing: http://www.worldrtd.net/member-organizations
- 3.
Cessario might have done well to examine NHPCO position statements and their Code of Ethics and not just their mission statement. He might have found in these some guiding ethical principles that he found absent in the mission statement.
- 4.
See also Nelson (2013) who discusses Wald ’s “pro-euthanasia ideology.”
- 5.
Capone et al. (2013) accuse Ira Byock of supporting the use of palliative sedation to hasten death. This is a false accusation. In an article co-authored with Timothy Quill, Byock states: “The purpose of the medications is to render the patient unconscious to relieve suffering, not to intentionally end his or her life” (2000, p. 410). He also refers to palliative sedation as a “last resort clinical response to extreme, unrelieved physical suffering” (ibid.).
References
Abbott, Matt C. 2013. The tragic reality of “covert euthanasia”. Renew America. http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/130509. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
Arnold, E.M., K.A. Artin, J.L. Person, and D.L. Griffith. 2004. Consideration of hastening death among hospice patients and their families. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 27 (6): 523–532.
Benedict XVI. 2005. Message of his holiness Benedict XVI for the 14th world day of the sick. http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/messages/sick/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20051208_world-day-of-the-sick-2006.html. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
———. 2009. Address of his holiness Benedict XVI on the occasion of his visit to the hospice foundation of Rome. http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2009/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20091213_hospice.html. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
Billings, J.A., and S.D. Brock. 1996. Slow euthanasia. Journal of Palliative Care 12: 21–30.
Capone, Ralph A., Kenneth R. Stevens, Julie Grimstad, and Ron Panzer. 2013. The rise of stealth euthanasia. Ethics & Medics 38 (6): 1–4.
CaringInfo. Caring connections timeline. http://www.caringinfo.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3402. Accessed 19 Jan 2017.
Catechism of the Catholic Church. 1994. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
Cessario, Romanus. 2006. Catholic considerations on palliative care. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 6 (4): 639–650.
Connors, Alfred F., Jr., Neal V. Dawson, Norman A. Desbiens, et al. 1995. A controlled trial to improve care for seriously ill hospitalized patients. The study to understand prognoses and preferences for outcomes and risks of treatments (SUPPORT). JAMA 274 (20): 1591–1598.
Dial, Kathy. 2003. Are euthanasia advocates taking over America’s hospice industry? LifeNews.com. http://www.lifenews.com/2003/12/19/bio-186/. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
Ferngren, Gary B. 2009. Medicine and health care in early Christianity. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Field, Marilyn J., and Christine Cassel, eds. 1997. Approaching death: Improving care at the end of life. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Freidrich, M.J. 1999. Hospice care in the United States: A conversation with Florence S. Wald. JAMA 281 (18): 1683–1685.
Helmueller, Mary Therese. 2005. Warning—Are you being targeted for euthanasia? Rense.com. http://www.rense.com/general63/euth.htm. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
Institute of Medicine (IOM). 2015. Dying in America: Improving quality and honoring individual preferences near the end of life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Isajiw, George. 2015. “Medical education in the shadow of ‘stealth euthanasia’” among Catholics: Are we fighting secularism or heresy? Linacre Quarterly 83 (3): 210–216.
John Paul II. 1993. Veritatis splendor. http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor.html. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
———. 1995. Evangelium vitae. http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
———. 2004. Address to the participants in the 19th international conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care. Retrieved from http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2004/november/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20041112_pc-hlthwork.html. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
Kirk, Timothy W., and Margaret M. McMahon. 2010. NHPCO position statement and commentary on the use of palliative sedation in imminently dying terminally ill patients. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 39 (5): 914–923.
Kutner, Louis. 1969. Due process of euthanasia: the living will, a proposal. Indiana Law Journal 44: 539–554.
LiPuma, Samuel H. 2011. The lacking of moral equivalence for continuous sedation and PAS. American Journal of Bioethics 11: 48–49.
LiPuma, Samuel H., and Joseph H. DeMarco. 2015. Expanding the use of continuous sedation until death: Moving beyond the last resort for the terminally ill. Journal of Clinical Ethics 26 (2): 121–131.
———. 2016. Palliative care and patient autonomy: moving beyond prohibitions against hastening death. Health Services Insights 9: 37–42.
Mallon, John. 2009. Palliative care: The new stealth euthanasia. Celebrate Life Magazine. http://www.clmagazine.org/article/palliative-care-the-new-stealth-euthanasia/. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. 2005. Commentary and resolution on physician assisted suicide. http://www.nhpco.org/sites/default/files/public/PAS_Resolution_Commentary.pdf. Accessed 7 Feb 2017.
Nelson, Kelleigh. 2013. Killing us softly—the pro-euthanasia ideology of American hospice founder Florence Wald. Freedom Outpost. http://freedomoutpost.com/killing-us-softly/. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
Panzer, Ron. 2011–2013. Stealth Euthanasia: Health Care Tyranny in America. Rockford: Hospice Patients Alliance. HTML/Web version. http://www.hospicepatients.org/this-thing-called-hospice.html. Accessed 28 Dec 2016.
Pope Francis. 2015. Address to participants in the plenary of the Pontifical Academy for Life. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/march/documents/papa-francesco_20150305_pontificia-accademia-vita.html. Accessed 14 Dec 2016.
Quill, Timothy E. 1991. Death and dignity—a case of individualized decision making. New England Journal of Medicine 324: 691–694.
———. 1997. A physician’s position on physician-assisted suicide. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 74 (1): 114–118.
Quill, Timothy E., and Ira R. Byock. 2000. Responding to intractable terminal suffering: The role of terminal sedation and voluntary refusal of food and fluids. Annals of Internal Medicine 132: 408–414.
Rady, M.Y., and J.L. Verheijde. 2010. Continuous deep sedation until death: Palliation or physician-assisted suicide? American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care 27: 205–214.
Raus, K., S. Sterckx, and F. Mortier. 2011. Is continuous sedation at the end of life an ethically preferable alternative to physician-assisted suicide? American Journal of Bioethics 11: 32–40.
Risse, Guenter B. 1999. Mending bodies, saving souls. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rys, S., R. Deschepper, F. Mortier, L. Deliens, and J. Bilsen. 2014. Continuous sedation until death with or without the intention to hasten death—A nationwide study in nursing homes in Flanders, Belgium. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 15 (8): 570–575.
Sigerist, Henry. 1943. Civilization and disease. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hamel, R. (2019). Palliative Care: Euthanasia by Another Name?. In: Cataldo, P., O’Brien, D. (eds) Palliative Care and Catholic Health Care . Philosophy and Medicine, vol 130. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05005-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05005-4_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05004-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05005-4
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)