While I was writing today’s post, I whined on Facebook:
Can’t tell if I’m struggling because I have hold of an important idea that is worth working through, or because I’m tired and stupid and making something out of nothing.
to which the wise and paternal Mark Shea responded:
Catholics are a both/and people.
Anyway, here it is, the piece I might as well have entitled: PLEASE MISUNDERSTAND ME! Okay, end of preemtive whine.
I do this all the time when I’m alone. I laughed so hard!
I forgot to mention it the other day, but we four did a roundable hour on Sheila Liaugminas’ show on Relevant Radio on Friday. Fun, fun, fun! It went by very fast, so mostly I remember the part where Dr. Popcak expresses relief that he no longer needs to wear that unbecoming denim jumper. You can listen here.
No one will argue that what happened to Jahi McMath isn’t a tragedy. But, John Di Camillo of the National Catholic Bioethics Center reminds us, it may not be the cut-and-dry case of a hard-hearted hospital wedded to the culture of death that some reports are making it out to be.
Jahi McMath went in for tonsil surgery and ended up being declared brain dead three days later, and there has been a legal struggle ever since, to determine whether or not she can be moved to another facility which will agree to continue keeping her on life support. The whole story is horrible and heart-wrenching, and I can’t even begin to imagine what I would do if I were the parents of this girl.
But we, as readers, don’t know all the details of it. In an interview with the Catholic News Agency, Di Camillo says:
“It’s not something that’s simply a clear-cut, back-and-white case that we can, from the outside, say we know what’s going on. Because we don’t,” he added.
So even though this is a highly emotional case, it’s important for Catholics not to make rash statements about the decisions of the people involved. The other day, I almost commented somewhere that that the hospital probably wanted Jahi to die to cover up any evidence of malpractice during the surgery. But that would have been a serious sin of detraction. Not only do I not know the motives of the doctors involved, I do not have any specific medical information about the case.
Di Camillo stressed the need to know the facts of Jahi McMath’s case before making a moral judgment.
“Before even getting to the ethical considerations, the medical facts are an absolute priority,” he said. “If we have a medically clear and confirmed determination of death by these neurological criteria, then we’re dealing with a situation where the body is actually the corpse of the deceased of this young girl.”
“If we’re dealing with a case where the person is in fact brain damaged but still alive, then we have a whole different set of ethical criteria because we’re talking about a living human being who is worthy of full respect and full treatment.”
Di Camillo reminds us that end-of-life decisions must be made on a case by case basis, and that “[l]ife support systems are sometimes ordinary means of treatment and sometimes disproportionate.” He reminds us that the case is not truly similar to Terry Schiavo, because Schiavo was clearly not brain dead; her husband simply didn’t want her to be alive anymore.
I wrote an article for Catholic Digest exploring some of the dilemmas caregivers face when they have to make life or death choices about the people they love. (The article includes some links for further reading on Catholic medical ethics, and a site that provides samples of an advance directive with durable power of attorney or healthcare proxy.)
The Church does not, as many people imagine, insist that we squeeze the last possibility out of every beating heart. I do not mean to imply that that’s what Jahi McMath’s parents are doing! The point is, we simply do not know. It is appropriate to pray for the family, and it is appropriate to have public and private conversations about what the Church teaches about end of life medical decisions. But it is wrong to assume we know what is going on in this particular case.
The only thing I’m not clear about is whether it ought ever to be up to hospitals to make the decision about whether to remove life support, assuming that the patient truly is past saving. I know that there are cases in which a person really is truly dead, and is being kept artificially “alive” because the family can’t bear to say goodbye. In those cases, should the hospital be able to make the decision for them? I don’t know.
Thank you, all my friends, for your words of consolation and for your prayers. Thank you for sharing your stories. So many of you have suffered so much. What a crowd of beloved babies there must be, waiting and praying for us! I am keeping all of you in my prayers, especially you parents who have lost babies you had really come to know and love.
Life goes on. We were supposed to be back to school Thursday, but we had a snow day yesterday and today. All I did was rest and watch the kids fight and play, wrestle with the dog and eat popcorn. My husband worked from home, and then he helped our resident Spiderbaby do a little ceiling walking, using the power of her favorite new hat:
Sweet baby, sweet husband. Sweet life.
Last night, I was cold and couldn’t sleep, so I snuggled up against my husband, who is always warm. When I’m pregnant, I like to press my belly against him so that we can all be warm all together, me and him and the baby. “Here you go, little guy. This is your daddy. You will like him.” Then, last night, I remembered that there is no baby.
There is no wild anguish here. I’m just tired, and bewildered. I was so busy for those seven weeks, I sometimes forgot I was even pregnant, even though we wanted, tried for a baby. I hadn’t gotten around to even looking up what the little one was up to, week to week. But I worked deliberately to make him real, when I remembered he was real: I asked God to bless him. I thanked God for him. I talked to him, and gave him a little happy pat when I remembered he was there.
Here is the thing that really hurts. I never saw the baby. I don’t know where he went. I lost track of his body as I bled, and now he is gone. Those are the worst nightmares: the wave comes, the darkness falls, the crowd sweeps by, and your child is gone. Where did he go? Why didn’t I hold on tighter? My husband would have gone and dug up the frozen ground to bury the body, but there is nothing to bury. He has been washed away, and I don’t even know when. Maybe he died weeks ago, when he was too little to be seen. Maybe I was happily patting someone who was already gone.
It wouldn’t change anything if I could have buried him. But I wish I could have done it.
I’m trying to hear the voice of the angel — the one who stands waiting outside the tomb to explain the situation, so that when you go to take care of the body and find it gone, you will know that there haven’t been wild animals or grave robbers or some trickery or indignity. You haven’t lost the body; the body has life. He is not here, but he is not gone. Don’t worry! This is a good thing. You cannot have his body, but you have not lost him.
I’m in a long Holy Saturday. A bewildering time. God promised joy, He promised resurrection, but in the mean time, what are we supposed to do? It is hard when the ones we love hide from us. They don’t need our care.
I want the baby to have eternal life. And I want him back.
Baby has come and gone. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your prayers and kind words. They helped so much through all the waiting. God bless you.
