On Removing Food and Water: Against the Stream

A controversy has emerged over whether nutrition and hydration may be from the permanently comatose or even from severely demented patients retain some consciousness. Meilaender fears that a consensus is building permit withholding, based on the premise that such action constitutes to die by removing useless and burdensome medical treatment. He that the comatose are still persons, that feeding is ordinary human rather than medical treatment, and that the provision of food is neither useless nor excessively burdensome. In addition, since of feeding means certain death, it constitutes killing whatever the. (KIE abstract)