Artificial Nutrition and Hydration Explained

Thirty bioethicists and health care experts gathered recently at a colloquium hosted by the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute to study John Paul II's speech last spring on life-sustaining treatments and the vegetative state.

To fully understand the implications of the papal speech and the colloquium's findings, Dr. William Sullivan, founding director of the institute, shared with ZENIT some scientific and moral issues concerning tube feeding or artificial nutrition and hydration for people in a persistent "vegetative" state or post-coma unresponsiveness.

Part 1 of the Zenit Article is here and Part 2 is here.