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While the burden of the Vatican restrictions has largely fallen on women, men do not escape unscathed - Catholic limitations on our health care also exist at the end of life and whenever we are ill:
#24 ...The institution, however, will not honor an advance directive (living will, health care proxy, etc.) that is contrary to Catholic teaching.
#25 Each person may identify in advance a representative to make health care decisions as his or her surrogate in the event that the person loses the capacity to make health care decisions. Decisions by the designated surrogate should be faithful to Catholic moral principles and to the person's intentions and values, or if the person's intentions are unknown, to the person's best interests.
#28 ...The free and informed health care decision of the person or the person's surrogate is to be followed so long as it does not contradict Catholic principles.
What this means is that if you fall seriously ill or are involved in an accident and are taken to either a Catholic hospital or a secular hospital which has merged with a Catholic institution, then all of your health care decisions are irrevocably bound by Catholic doctrines. It doesn't matter if your prior decisions were legally made - Vatican rules take precedence.
What if you have a designated "surrogate," like a spouse, who is empowered to make decisions for you if your are incapacitated? What if that person knows that you don't want extreme measures taken to save you? The decisions of chosen surrogates, health care proxies or living wills may not be honored if they are found to be contrary to Catholic teachings. The Catholic Church will take over and make those decisions for you now.
What if you don't want to be kept on life support if you end up in a "persistent vegetative state" from which you won't recover? Too bad - advanced life support may not be discontinued, even if family requests it, if it is found to be against Catholic teachings. Since Catholic organizations are also buying up or merging with nursing homes and other institutions which exclusively care for the elderly, such restrictions will have a widespread impact.
Non-Catholic physicians and families will find themselves in the awkward position of having to consult Catholic theologians when advance directives risk violating religious moral teaching. How would you feel if you were forced to argue with a nun or a priest that you should be permitted to take perfectly legal action which you know your loved-one wanted?
And what if you are in an extreme amount of unrelievable pain due to a terminal illness? You're totally out of luck:
#61 ...Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.
This is absolutely unacceptable when you remember that this is expected to happen even in a secular hospital receiving government funding! Of course, such an ideology does explain why Mother Teresa failed to provide adequate pain medication and is quoted as saying that the suffering of patients was "beautiful."
Prohibitions against "material cooperation" would also not allow for you to be moved to another institution for the purpose of your desires being fulfilled. And keep in mind that in such extreme situations, you won't have a choice about what hospital you are taken to, especially if you are travelling.
Keep reading: Church & State.
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