The artificial nutrition debate: still an issue... after all these years

Abstract

Debate over withdrawal or withholding of artificial nutrition appeared a distant discussion until the furor over the Schiavo case and a Papal Allocation reignited this ethical dilemma. The purpose of this article is to provide a review of the bioethical opinion regarding artificial nutrition, as published in the Hastings Center Report from 1971 until 2007. A clinical and religious history of the evolution and use of artificial nutrition prefaces the review containing common themes and categories framed within a chronology of bioethical and legal events. Finally, an interpretative philosophical discussion is offered on the resurgence of the ethical dilemma concerning withdrawal or withholding of artificial nutrition. Through a combination of classic content analysis and grounded theory, 8 inductively derived categories emerged from a sample of 63 articles/letters with a primary focus on artificial nutrition, enteral nutrition or parenteral nutrition. These categories included illness/treatment trajectory, personhood, family, provider, cost, religion, legal, and ethics and morality. In more than 35 years, surprisingly little has changed with regard to withdrawal or withholding of artificial nutrition. As the Schiavo case revealed, despite a sense in bioethics of a firm consensus about handling the withdrawal of food and water, many are still searching for answers to this dilemma.