Charles E. Rice

The decision to withdraw feeding tubes and hydration from vegetative patients is often questionable, maintains Charles E. Rice in the following viewpoint. Although the fatally ill should be allowed to die, some comatose or severely disabled patients have had life support withdrawn even though they still had many years to live. Moreover, Rice contends, death by starvation and dehydration is a gruesome process that is difficult to watch. Because of this, many are willing to endorse euthanasia for the terminally ill, believing that such intentional killing is more humane than withdrawal of nutritional life support. However, the law should forbid any purposeful killing of the innocent, Rice concludes. Rice is a professor at Notre Dame Law School. As you read...