Summarised from an article by Raanan Gillon in the Guardian (March 7th '96)
The capacity of modern medicine to prolong people's lives for their benefit is truly wonderful. Sometimes, however, the medical profession has a duty of care not to intervene, where the prolongation of a patient's life is not in that patient's interests and may even serve simply to prolong his or her suffering. The vast majority of people recognise that this approach is right in many instances, yet, Raanan Gillon argues, feelings with regard to feeding are unjustifiably ambiguous.
Most people accept that, at some point in the treatment of a dying person, medical intervention is no longer in the best interests of the patient and can be withdrawn. It is understood that this means use will no longer be made of artificial respirators, drug treatments and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. However, under the same conditions many people, including those in the medical profession and the Roman Catholic Church, feel uncomfortable about the suspension of artificial feeding and hydration, believing food and water to be a basic human right which cannot be taken away.
A contradiction is apparent in this attitude. If it is tolerable to withdraw air, arguably a right even more basic than food, from a patient by switching off a respirator, why is the suspension of artificial nutrition viewed differently ? It is clear that the prolongation of certain patients' lives is undesirable because it is of no benefit or even harmful to them. Where these patients require artificial feeding, either via tubes through the nose or entering the stomach directly, this represents a medical intervention in the same way as does a respirator.
Ceasing to intervene in this way is not 'starving a patient to death', any more than switching off a respirator is 'suffocating a patient to death'. Starvation and suffocation imply suffering imposed on a victim against his or her interests. This is not true for patients whose suffering is prolonged with their life, and it goes against the core of medical morality to argue otherwise.
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