Advance Medical Directive Consistent with Catholic Faith

By Linda Busetti
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the issue of 8/29/02)

If your elderly mother suffered a stroke or your son was critically injured in an auto accident, would decisions about their medical care be made consistent with Catholic teaching? If you intend to be an organ donor, would your wishes be followed?

Calls from people, who were experiencing similar medical dilemmas, to the diocesan Office of Family Life spurred Director Bob Laird and Assistant Director Andrea King to create the Diocese of Arlington’s Advance Medical Directive (AMD).

The medical directive, which is consistent with Catholic teaching, is a legal instrument that meets Commonwealth of Virginia requirements for such medical directives according to the Health Care Decisions Act. Under Virginia law, an advance medical directive serves the same purpose as a durable power of attorney or living will.

Over the past year, assisted by a lawyer, a registered nurse and Father Paul de Ladurantaye, diocesan secretary for religious education and sacred liturgy, Laird and King compiled the AMD, as well as instructions on filling out the document. An Organ Donation Authorization form is also included in the AMD packet, which is available from the Office of Family Life.

Any competent person over the age of 18 residing in the Commonwealth of Virginia has the legal right to appoint a health care agent. A health care agent makes medical decisions on your behalf when you are unable to make them yourself. As explained in the AMD supplement, if no health care agent is named prior to the need for one, family may not be able to make decisions about life-sustaining treatment or will "face the burden of making decisions for you without your guidance."

According to the supplement, the right to die is the "right to die peacefully with human and Christian dignity … Those whose task it is to care for the sick must do so conscientiously and administer the remedies that seem necessary or useful." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Euthanasia, Part IV, May 1980.)

For guidance, levels of medical treatment and care are defined in the supplement including extraordinary ("disproportionate"), ordinary ("proportionate"), comfort care and palliative care.

Terms such as "do not resuscitate" (DNR); "final stages of terminal illness"; and "persistent vegetative state" (PVS) are explained in the AMD supplement glossary.

The AMD explains how a person (the declarant) can change or cancel his or her medical directive, what powers are granted to the health care agent and duration and scope of the health care agent’s authority. Part III of the AMD is a clear, thorough statement of "religious beliefs and basic values" in regard to medical treatment consistent with Catholic teaching for the guidance of the health care agent and medical personnel. Instructions on the declarant’s preferred medical care in particular situations — if the person is pregnant, in a "so-called persistent vegetative state" or in the final stages of a terminal illness or injury or when death is imminent — is presented in detail.

In completing the AMD, the declarant names a primary health care agent and successor agents in case the primary agent is unavailable or unwilling to act as agent. After the declarant provides information on his or her doctor and lawyer, the AMD is witnessed by two persons 18 years of age or older. A spouse or blood relative of the declarant cannot be a witness to the AMD.

While considering what measures should be taken in the event of a very serious illness or injury, an individual may also want to complete the Organ Donation Authorization form. Again, the declarant appoints an agent, this time authorizing that person to make an anatomical gift or organ, tissue or eye donation following the declarant’s death.

In contemplating organ donation, individuals may consider the words of Pope John Paul II, "Every organ donation for the health and well-being of another is ‘a gesture which is a genuine act of love. It is not just a matter of giving something that belongs to us but of giving something of ourselves, for by virtue of its substantial union with a spiritual soul, the human body cannot be considered as a mere complex of tissues, organs, and functions, rather it is a constitutive part of the person who manifests and expresses himself through it.’"

The Office of Family Life will hold informational meetings about the AMD in all six deaneries in September and October. These meetings are open to all who are interested in learning more about advance medical directives. Parishes will be given the opportunity to buy copies of the AMD in bulk.

Laird said the Office of Family Life will be glad to hold informational meetings at coffee hours after Sunday Mass in parishes where they are invited to do so.

For individual copies of the Advance Medical Directive, contact the Office of Family Life at 703/841-2550 or by email at familylife@arlingtondiocese.org. Inquiries about filling out the AMD can be directed to the Office of Family Life, King said.

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