Withdrawing nutrition and hydration. The Catholic tradition offers guidance for the treatment of patients in a persistent vegetative state.

Dr. Panicola is the ethicist for SSM litalth ('air, St. Louis. An expansion of this article appears in The Hastings ( enter Report, November-December, 2001, vol. 31, no. 6. T he issue of withdrawing medically assisted nutri t ion and hydration from patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) continues to he a source of conflict for Catholics. This was illustrated recently in the cases involving H u g h Finn and Steven Becker, in which Catholics of presumed goodwill came down on both sides of the fence. On one side were those who argued that withdrawing medically assisted nutrition and hydration from Finn and Becker was morall) acceptable in light of a holistic benefit-burden analysis. On the other side were those who argued that withdrawing medically assisted nutrition and hydration from Finn and Becker was equivalent to murder in that both men w ere essentially starved to death when they could otherwise have lived for several years.