God Squad: Making a loving decision after a mother's stroke

My mom had a stroke, and the doctor insisted she'd have pain without a feeding tube. I don't believe this is true. In any case, do I have a moral obligation to have a feeding tube inserted when there's no chance of improvement?

- P., via e-mail

If your mom is dying from the stroke, you don't need to put in a feeding tube. If she's not dying, you do need to put in the tube or risk allowing her to starve.

You face a critical medical and spiritual moment where a line divides prolonging life through clinically approved therapeutic medical treatments (which is always the religious imperative) versus authorizing non-therapeutic procedures whose only purpose is to postpone imminent death, which is not only not required but not permitted according to most major religious traditions.

Talk to the doctors until you understand everything you can about your mother's condition, then make the most loving, wise choice you can.

I'm not sure I understand the difference between palliative care and suicide. I've personally witnessed both of these things with two separate loved ones.

Suicide leaves loved ones with unanswered questions and a lot of guilt. Palliative care, in my opinion, is the same thing, but it's OK because it brings the closure that suicide does not. However, if God owns our bodies, as you say, then why is one OK and the other is not?

L., via e-mail

Palliative care aims at making a patient comfortable and free of pain. Such care is not therapy, but it is a moral and spiritual good because it eases pain and does not delay death. Suicide, on the other hand, either kills a healthy living person or kills a sick living person who's not about to die. The difference is enormous.

When people are dying, they're beyond therapy, but they're not beyond hope. There's still the religious hope that death is not the end of us; it's not the death of our souls, which live on with God.

Suicide is the death of hope when it's the choice of healthy people sunk in despair.

If God owns our bodies, then we're not permitted to take what we don't own. If, on the other hand, you believe that we own our bodies, then suicide is our right. I stand with hope and faith on this one because suicidal despair can pass with therapy, but suicide is an ultimate surrender. Suicide, as you wisely note, also leaves those left behind filled with confusion, grief and guilt. When you choose life and hope, you always stand with God.

Would not our decision to seek medical attention and/or attempt to prolong life with chemotherapy, insulin injections, heart transplants, etc., contravene God's prerogative to determine if and when our lives should end? Are we not substituting our judgment for His? Or might we think of God having bestowed on us the ability to think, reason, unravel the human genome puzzle, develop modern medical treatments, etc., as His way of "allowing" us to master our own destiny (with His implicit approval)?

If that is the case, would it not also suggest that by so empowering us to control the longevity of our lives to a greater (or lesser) extent, we may also elect (with His approval) to end our lives, when not doing so would only subject us and our families to needless suffering due to terminal illness?

- P. via e-mail

Refusing non-therapeutic medical procedures at the end of life is God's will because death is an eventual, natural and intended end to life. It's not our decision to end our lives. It's our acceptance of God's decision to let our lives end.