(NRO) – Moves are afoot in bioethics to require caregivers to withhold food and water by mouth from a patient made incompetent by dementia if that patient, while compos mentis, has signed such a request — and even if the patient willingly eats, enjoys meals, or asks for food. It is sometimes called “voluntary stop eating and drinking [VSED] by advance directive,” in the parlance.
I have frequently criticized VSED by directive as inhumane to the patient, cruel to caregivers (as it forces them to starve people to death), and designed to open the door to lethally jabbing those with advanced dementia as the less onerous alternative to their being made to starve to death. CONTINUE