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Wed 29 Feb, 2012 07:46 am
Context:
Advanced directives, of course, are documents that individuals can sign when they are healthy and mentally competent to direct what level, if any, of life-extending care they would want if they were to end up in a coma, have a terminal illness, etc. After the Terry Schiavo debacle, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops established a policy that seriously restricts the ability of Catholic hospital staff to honor advanced directives, even for non-Catholic patients. And that policy has already led to situations where advanced directives for individuals who wished not to have their lives extended in a vegetative state were ignored.
No. It means something like "comply with". It means that if patients say something like they do not wish to be resuscitated or maintained on life support if there is no possibility of recovery, Catholic hospitals say they don't have to obey those patients' wishes. I'm not sure exactly the Catholic rationale on this, it's not stated in the quote, but I suspect it's something like they consider that a form of suicide and Catholic doctrine forbids suicide, so they won't go along with it.
These "advanced directives" are overseen by relatives and doctors, so they can amend the wishes of the person who is no longer capable of giving the directives. This is what happened in the Terry Scheivo case. Her "guardians" decided her health care.
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