When evaluating the developments and complications of a marginally viable premature infant, physicians and parents must work together to decide on treatment that is in the infant’s best interest.
Physicians do not have to give therapies or perform procedures that they judge to be futile and Catholic patients have the moral right to determine what is extraordinary or ordinary care.
The Catholic Health Association of the United States has chosen to allow the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to supersede Pope John Paul II’s allocution on patients in a permanent vegetative state.
Bioethicist Bruce Jennings examines the changing role of physicians in end-of-life care, from paternalistic decision maker to advisor-technician and half-way back.