Vatican City — The Pope said Saturday the removal of feeding tubes from people in vegetative states was immoral, and that no judgment on their quality of life could justify such “euthanasia by omission.”
John Paul II made the comments to participants of a Vatican conference on the ethical dilemmas of dealing with incapacitated patients, entering into a debate that has sparked court battles in several countries.
The Pope said even the medical terminology used to describe people in so-called “persistent vegetative states” was degrading to them.
No matter how sick a person was, “he is and will always be a man, never becoming a vegetable or animal,” he said.
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