New Jersey Bill Would Allow Starving Dementia Patients to Death

Serious moves are afoot to allow ending the lives of dementia patients, either by allowing them to be killed by lethal jab euthanasia if requested in a written advance directive (where legal), or to allow a document to be signed requiring caregivers to withhold sufficient food and water to sustain life.

New Jersey seems to move subtly in the latter direction with a vaguely worded bill, S.B. 4186, that could open the door to intentional legal undernourishment. From the bill:

It is the public policy of this State to respect the dignity, autonomy, and previously expressed wishes of individuals living with dementia by authorizing Dementia-Specific Advance Directives (DSADs), establishing clear standards for “comfort feeding only,” and ensuring that such directives are honored across all care settings.

Please note that this proposal isn’t about withholding or withdrawing bona fide medical treatments, such as kidney dialysis or chemotherapy, but concerns spoon-feeding.

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Here is how “comfort feeding only” is defined in the bill:

“Comfort feeding only” means an order that directs caregivers to offer oral food and fluids by hand, if and as tolerated, for comfort purposes, and prohibits artificial nutrition or hydration through feeding tubes or intravenous means.

Feeding tubes and intravenous means are medical treatments that can be withheld or withdrawn. No objections. But what does that definition leave out? Sufficient food and fluids, orally administered, to sustain the patient’s life if the patient willingly eats. Why not require that also?

By all means, prohibit forced feeding, but also provide that patients be given all nourishment they want (consistent with other medical concerns, such as aspiration). If that is insufficient to sustain life over time, so be it. At the same time, undernourishment would not be the goal. Hastening death would not be the intent. Patients who want to eat more than required for minimal comfort could do so.

But that approach would not get the job done, which I think this bill seeks, i.e., allowing patients to order their own sub-rosa euthanasia in slow motion. Once that is allowed, it would be only a matter of time before quicker endings were authorized.

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.