News Home Page

NORTH COUNTY ---- End-of-life decisions can be as difficult and heart rending for members of the clergy as they are for families such as Terri Schiavo's.

Pastor Lewis Leon of Oceanside's First Presbyterian Church knows firsthand about the often-painful decisions that confront family members with a loved one being kept alive by life support systems.

Leon has been asked to counsel families after physicians have said their loved ones' quality of life would be so diminished that maintaining life support would be virtually pointless.

He's also had to deal with the issue in his own life.

"My own mother died a year ago and we were faced with the question of whether to put a feeding tube into her," Leon said this week. "Thankfully, my mother had very much verbally expressed and written that she did not want to kept alive by external life support."

The Schiavo case surrounds a Florida woman kept alive by artificial means for 15 years in what has been termed a "persistent vegetative state."

Her husband has said she told him she did not want to be kept alive through such measures, but her parents and siblings disagree. The Florida Legislature and courts have addressed the case, and Congress weighed in over the weekend with a bill that moved the case to federal court. There, a judge ruled against reinserting the feeding tube that was removed last week.

The U.S. Supreme Court, which has twice refused to consider her case, may once again be asked to rule.

All the questions and soul-searching spurred by the high-profile case comes during a week Christians celebrate as holy, one that ends on Easter Sunday, a celebration of the day Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead.

But people of faith are often as torn about so-called right-to-life and right-to-die issues as anyone else.

Leon said that when he is asked to provide counsel to families confronting such issues, he often poses the question of what family members would want for themselves if they were being kept alive by artificial life-support systems.

"I have been invited to participate in these discussions with families and the issue is often about how much brain activity is going on," he said.

Having a spouse serve as the authority in the absence of a written directive from the person facing death, the issue at the heart of the Schiavo case, is almost always difficult for other family members to accept, Leon said.

At Temple Solel in Encinitas, Rabbi Ted Riter said Wednesday that a committee that helps guide Reform Judaism rabbis in Canada and the United States has ruled that if a feeding tube is the only thing separating a person from death, that tube should not be removed.

"When someone is breathing on their own and their heart is functioning, you cannot remove the feeding tube," he said.

Nonetheless, Jewish law also teaches that there is no obligation to continue a medical procedure solely for the purpose of keeping someone alive who may not be able to function in any way, he said.

"I have been in enough intensive care units and dealt with it personally to know that as a family member and as a member of the clergy it is very difficult," Riter said. "That is part of what makes us human and why we are so torn by this case."

At St. Stephen's Catholic Church in Valley Center, the Rev. William Kernan said Catholic teaching makes it clear that withholding food and water is wrong. The Catholic Church has said that removing Schiavo's feeding tube amounts to euthanasia.

"Given the amount of medical resources today, we have to be really discerning and use a limited number of resources so we don't sustain life at all costs," Kernan said. "But the issue in the Schiavo case is feeding someone and we consider that a corporal work of mercy such as clothing the naked and visiting the sick and infirmed."

Other local clergy members interviewed this week said the key to deciding such matters rests with the person having clearly written and expressed their desires about life support.

"The important thing is to put it in your will so families do not have to make these kinds of decisions during what is a very difficult time," said Pastor Philip Tukua at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Fallbrook. "As Christians, we look at death differently and Easter tells us we have victory over death and that life doesn't end at the grave."

Rebecca Moore, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University, said her class on religion and America debated the issues surrounding the Schiavo case on Monday.

"What I emphasized to the class is that this is the perfect opportunity as they head home for spring break on Friday to talk about the need for advanced directives with their families," Moore said Wednesday.

Theology does not give clear answers on what should be done in life-support situations, Moore said.

"Within the Christian community, there is no agreement on what to do in the Schiavo case, which is by no means unique. There are people of good conscience who believe that extraordinary measures to prolong life are proper while others argue it is not humane nor in the best interests of the individual."

In Fallbrook, Pastor Stan Wujek at Emmanuel Baptist Church said he will incorporate some of the issues surrounding the Schiavo case into his Easter sermon.

"It won't be the whole message, but will be part of the fall of man and the whole culture of death that permeates our society today," Wujek said. "The issue here is a family and her nurse and others who say she wants to live yet so many others say the quality of that living is more important. Why does her husband want to pronounce a death sentence on her?"

Despite his view that Schiavo's life should be sustained through the reinsertion of a feeding tube, he would agree there is a point when such efforts must be suspended. But that point does not come until it is clear the person has no chance of any kind of recovery, he said.

"I had a brother who died last year at age 46," Wujek said. "He was on life support and we had done everything there was to do. It reached the point where he was brain dead and we were getting ready to have the machines turned off when his heart stopped beating."

Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.