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The Pope Says Water Isn't Medicine |
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"I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act," said Pope John Paul II at an International Congress in Rome on 20 Mar. 04. Likewise, "Considerations about 'the quality of life, often actually dictated by psychological, social and economic pressures, cannot take precedence over general principles" A human being cannot be a vegetable, however disabled he may be. "It is not possible to rule out a priori that the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration, as reported by authoritative studies, is the source of considerable suffering for the sick person, even if we can see only the reactions at the level of the autonomic nervous system, or of gestures. Modern clinical neurophysiology and neuro-imaging techniques, in fact, seem to point to the lasting quality in these patients of elementary forms of communication and analysis of stimuli."
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