We all know that the Catholic Church is against any form of euthanasia – both active (i.e. lethal injection) and passive (i.e. “pulling the plug”). My question is, does the Church accept living wills that state you should never be “plugged in” in the first place? Does the Church mandate or strongly encourage the initiation of extreme measures to sustain life?
My fuzzy recollection of this from an ethics class is that the Roman Catholic church takes just the opposite position: that an individual always has the choice to refuse extraordinary treatment (i.e. - that may have a low percentage chance of cure and a high percentage chance of debilitating side-effects) and can choose instead to let nature take its course - palliative care, and so on, but nothing to hasten death.
The following paragraphs from the Catechism of the Catholic Church make it clear that an individual (or someone acting on his behalf) has the right to refuse medical treatments that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary or disproportionate, provided that the refusal is not motivated by a desire to cause death so much as an acceptance of the inability to impede it:
2277 Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.
Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.
2278 Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of “over-zealous” treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.
2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.