Adysthanasia for Cory Aquino

More and more Filipinos from different political divides and walks of life are praying for Corazon Aquino — the widow of Benigno Aquino who became the president of the post-Marcos Philippines.  She’s facing probably the biggest battle of her life, as she squares off with colon cancer — that is, if being the better half of Ninoy during the Martial Law years, running the country for six years (read: democratizing Philippines after Marcos), and/or being a mother to Kris Aquino are smaller battles.

Last week, there was a news report about Cory’s decision not to have further chemotherapy.  Accordingly, the family has decided to submit Cory’s fate into the hands of God.  Whatever that means for them.

As I see it, their decision for Cory is technically termed adysthanasia. 

What is it?  Firstly, we understand it etymologically.  In Greek, “thanatos” means death (hence, “thanasia”).  And “dys,” again of Greek origin, means difficult (as in dis-ease); while “a” is, as know, not (as in asocial).  So, adysthanasia is “not or away from difficult death”.  Formally, it refers to the allowing a terminally ill person to meet his/her death without appropriate recourse through artificially delivered fluids and nutritions through the use of feeding tubes and other medical interventions, like ventilator support. (Its opposite is dysthanasia — not euthanasia! — which connotes efforts to help delay the imminent death of a person through the use of the same.)

Adysthanasia is letting a person die with dignity.  This is because anyone who decides for it at least must be accorded with the ethical values of proportionate prolongation of life, humanization of illness and death, and he/she is not deprived of liberty. 

Adysthanasia may be recoursed to only when the ordinary means avaiable to medical science for relief of pain and prolongation of life are meted to the patient.  In the concrete, this means hospitilization for the patient.  Note the word “ordinary means”.  It means the treatment should not be disproportionately costly, burdensome and painful.  Likewise, the means of treatment is ordinary if it’s going to offer substantial hope to the patient.  In contrast, an extraordinary means are those treatments that do not have the effect of causing or perpetuating an excessive difficulty that a person cannot be expected to bear, or that for which the persons who are caring for the sick are made to shoulder an excessively hard obligation, or which does not offer a substantial hope of recovery for the patient.