Texas Catholic Conference provided testimony opposing SB 1663. This bill states that if employees of nursing institutions knowingly disregard or violate a resident's advance directive, their actions constitute abuse and neglect of the resident. The TCC opposes this bill because it could force medical personnel to remove nutrition and hydration at the request of the patient when it is not medically indicated.

Below you can read written testimony that was given to committee members:

The Texas Catholic Conference opposes this bill because it doesn't provide for any substantive standards for determining the propriety of the decision to remove life sustaining treatment.  While we respect Senator Wentworth's efforts to support a patient's wishes in his or her advance directives, we believe that there are times when a health care provider cannot in good conscience respect the advance directive.  Under this legislation if a patient requests the removal or suspension of ordinary medical care, which will result in directly causing the patient's death, the healthcare provider would be guilty of abuse.  An advance directive may call for medical procedures which no longer correspond to the real situation of the patient, either because they are by now disproportionate to any expected results or because the specific medical situation has changed.  The professional role of the healthcare provider and his conscience is not adequately protected by this bill.  Even with the conscience exemption that was added in the Senate floor debate, we are still concerned that the bill doesn't provide for any substantive standards for determining the ethical or medical appropriateness of the requests made by the advanced directive.

The Church teaches that intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. [However] Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "over-zealous" treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2324, 2278).