(Wesley J. Smith / NRO) – There is a move afoot among bioethicists to allow written directives by dementia patients, signed before the patients have become incompetent, to force caregivers to withhold spoon-feeding and liquids from those patients.
Now, one of the country’s most notable and oft-quoted bioethicists, Arthur Caplan, has taken a position in favor of such a policy, in an article in the online publication Medscape.
First, Caplan discusses the potential withholding of feeding tubes (artificial hydration and nutrition, or AHN, in medical parlance), which is unquestionably legal because AHN is a medical treatment that involves surgery and medically prepared nutrients and — like other treatments, ranging from surgery to chemotherapy — can be ordered through advance directives to be withheld or withdrawn. CONTINUE