The task of medicine is to care even when it cannot cure. Physicians and their patients must evaluate the use of the technology at their disposal.

There is in the June issue US Catholic Magazine an opinion published on the end-of-life care ethical issues from Thomas Nairn (professor of Catholic ethics at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago) with the title Can a Catholic refuse medical care? (unfortunately it is not available on-line).

In essence Fr. Nairn refers to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, Fourth Edition issued by the US bishops in 2001 (http://www.usccb.org/bishops/directives.shtml  )

" The use of life-sustaining technology is judged in light of the Christian meaning of life, suffering, and death. Only in this way are two extremes avoided: on the one hand, an insistence on useless or burdensome technology even when a patient may legitimately wish to forgo it and, on the other hand, the withdrawal of technology with the intention of causing death." (PART FIVE, Issues in Care for the Dying, Introduction).

This balanced view seem to me right - of course the difficulties arise when in reality we need to find the point of equilibrium, but at least we know which direction to move.

Fr. Nairn adds that "Catholic tradition understands that life is a value that must be protected, but biological life in itself is not an absolute". I very much agree that we should not absolutize biological life, but should emphasize our faith in the resurrection more. In the light of faith in the resurrection and eternal life death is not the worse thing that can happen to somebody, but it is a fact of life that awaits all of us. I would say that there is a right to death to, meaning by it a dignified and "natural" process of dying, which should not be taken away by a wish to apply advanced technology on the part of professionals, or by a excessive fear from death and  an absolutized view of biological life on the part of patients and family.

The Directive #57states that "A person may forgo extraordinary or disproportionate means of preserving life. Disproportionate means are those that in the patient's judgment do not offer a reasonable hope of benefit or entail an excessive burden, or impose excessive expense on the family or the community". As the author of this article points out "even with these definitions in mind, it is clear that end-of-life decision-making within the Catholic tradition will never be exact. The middle ground is dynamic rather than static. Nevertheless, it helps to ask how medical treatments benefit or burden a dying patient".

Although life is worth to preserve and technology is good and useful, it has its limits that need to be considered in informed decisions about en-of-life care.

In final analysis, there is no formula to apply that would resolve each individual case, just a general directive. In my opinion this is good, since it underlines the uniqueness of each human person. We are not just cases of a general pattern but individuals with personal unrepeatable history. This uniqueness comes with the price that we need to take risks when deciding just about everything in life, and even in dying (if we have possibility, place and time at all to wonder about these issues).