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Posted by paul on May 18, 2005, 7:15 am Bill to make feeding tubes harder to remove progresses But even supporters want more specifics Tuesday, May 17, 2005 BATON ROUGE -- A bill to make it harder to remove a feeding tube from a seriously ill or disabled person cleared the House Committee on Health and Welfare on a 10-3 vote Monday, although some lawmakers who supported it said they want to see it tightened with more specific language when it gets to the House floor. Rep. Gary Beard, R-Baton Rouge, sponsor of House Bill 675, said the measure would prohibit denying food and water to a patient in the last stages of life unless there was a "declaration" by the patient or a family member requesting it. A "living will" that requested the removal of "life support" would not be enough unless it specifically addressed the issue of food and water. The law would require that the life support remain intact until any court suits were resolved. The bill was inspired in part by the case of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged Florida woman who died in March after a years-long legal battle between her husband and her parents about whether to remove the feeding tubes that were keeping her alive. Schiavo suffered a stroke in 1990 and had been in a persistent vegetative state for years. Schiavo's husband said she had told him she did not want to be kept alive artificially, but her parents said she was responsive and wanted their daughter to continue getting food and water. Courts ruled that the tubes sustaining her life could be removed. Beard said his bill still would let individuals make a "living will" stating they did not want to be kept alive by any means, including with food and water. He said a written or oral statement by the patient or a family member also could authorize the removal of the food and water. Beard said that means that if a patient asked to have the tubes removed, those wishes would be followed. Beard said that if there was no declaration by the patient or the family, the presumption would be that the patient wanted to be kept alive on food and water, and no one could order it withheld. Opponents said they were against the bill because of its basic underlying assumption: that every qualified patient is presumed to want to be kept alive by nutrition and water. "It is a great leap to assume everybody wants it," said Nelson Waguespack, a registered nurse who also has a divinity degree and works at a hospice. He said his father is slowly dying and wants to "meet his maker and go to heaven. . . . Are we saying the state has to bar the door, and God has to come and break it down?" Under Beard's bill, food and water also could be withheld when giving sustenance was not medically possible, when it would hasten death or when it would worsen the patient's condition. If a lawsuit was filed about denial of nutrition or water, no action could be taken until all appeals had been exhausted. The bill is needed to offset "a pro-death agenda," said Diane Lebreton, whose said her father died after doctors advised denying him food and water. "Please protect us people who are caught in this death trap." Sen. Tom Schedler, R-Mandeville, who said he is Catholic and usually sides with antiabortion causes, asked the committee to kill the bill. He said his wife has worked with hospice patients for years and "death is not pretty. But when we are trying to leave the world, are we going to say, 'Big Brother is going to inject itself into it?' " He said the bill is "bad politics and bad public policy." A similar Senate bill is pending in the Senate.
68.6.36.93
From The Times-Picayune
By Ed Anderson
Capital bureau
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