The attempted withdrawal of food and water from a quadriplegic man in France is an example of a “throwaway culture” that disposes of the weakest in society, according to the Vatican.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, and Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, issued a joint statement on Tuesday 21 May saying that turning off Vincent Lambert’s life support was a “serious violation.”
The case of Mr Lambert, 42, who has been in a vegetative state since a motorcycle accident in 2008, has sparked a right-to-die debate in France after doctors this week begun withdrawing life support. But a court has since ordered them to restore nutrition and drink, pending a review of his situation by a United Nations body, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Although Mr Lambert is in a vegetative state, the Vatican prelates argued that his dignity and right to life must not be compromised, and that nutrition and hydration are examples of “essential care” and their use is “proportionate” in this instance.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that “discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate” as it is “the refusal of ‘over-zealous’ treatment.” The intention, the teaching explains, is not to “will death” but to accept it is impossible to prevent.
“The suspension of these treatments,” Cardinal Farrell and Archbishop Paglia said of Lambert's case, “represents a form of abandonment of the patient based on a merciless judgment on his quality of life.”
They added that it signals “a throwaway culture that selects the most fragile and defenceless people, without recognising their unique and immense value” and that continuing treatment is an “inescapable duty.”
Pope Francis has repeatedly talked about the dangers of a culture that discards the most vulnerable, and in a tweet on Monday wrote: “We pray for those who live with severe illness. Let us always safeguard life, God’s gift, from its beginning until its natural end. Let us not give in to a throwaway culture.”
On 15 April 2018, the Pope made an appeal for Vincent Lambert along with Alfie Evans, a two-year-old British boy who died from a neurodegenerative disorder, while three days later stated: “I would like to reiterate and strongly confirm that the only master of life, from its beginning to its natural end, is God.
Mr Lambert's case is particularly fraught given that his wife has called for his feeding tubes to be withdrawn, while his parents insist he is kept alive. They were the ones who referred the case to the UN body.
Cardinal Farrell and Archbishop Paglia added that they supported a statement on Mr Lambert’s case from the Archbishop of Reims, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort while the Archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, who before ordination was a doctor, said withdrawing Mr Lambert’s life support would cause the “cruel pain of dying of thirst.”
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