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Secular and Catholic hospitals are routinely killing terminally ill patients by giving them higher than necessary doses of morphine while withholding necessary food and water. Seldom spoken of in public, this process is known by medical personnel as a "dry death."

One nurse from a formerly Catholic-run hospital in Maine told ChurchMilitant.com, "When they want to clear out a bed, they just turn up the morphine drip." The nurse said the increase in morphine slows down the functioning of vital organs and in a few days the patient is dead.

Another caregiver at a Catholic hospital in Pennsylvania related a similar gruesome experience. She claims when passing the bed of an elderly female patient, the patient abruptly sat up with an agonizing look, grabbed the caregiver's arm and tried in vain to form words with her dry mouth and cracked lips. Another nurse calmly walked up and said sympathetically, "Poor thing, she's on her seventh day of a dry death." The caregiver was told that "dry death" means only morphine is given to the patient but no food or water until the patient dies. The cause of death in such cases is dehydration. The caregiver protested to the local bishop, who refused to get involved.

Last month, following the death of a priest at a Catholic hospital in Milwaukee, an eyewitness confirmed to ChurchMilitant.com that the priest only received morphine but no food or water for the whole week before he died. When the witness questioned this medical decision, he was told that it would be too much bother to move the patient to hospice care in order to continue giving food and water, known as palliative care.

Watch the panel discuss the issue of euthanasia in "The Download—Dying Without Dignity."

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