Jewish Law Meets the D.C. Superior Court
There is a tragic article in today’s Washington Post about a young hasidic boy who was stricken with brain cancer. He is currently being kept alive with a ventilator and drugs. The hospital wants to disconnect the ventilator, because in their opinion the boy is already dead, and in the opinion of the parents, the boy is still alive. The case is now in the courts. Some discussion of the different opinions regarding the time of death in Judaism can be found here, here, and here (PDF). For some legal commentary see here.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:13 am
it is a very sad situation, and even though I don’t agree with the family’s interpretation, I’m tremendously disturbed by the notion that a hospital could disregard the parents’ wishes. This is a scary slippery slope to euthanasia.
I’m also scared by the comments on Turley’s blog, which seem to be “suck it up, you dumb ortho jews.” in the original article in the post, it was made clear that Children’s was not complaining about the cost (although I’m skeptical) but the diversion of a bed and staff to keep the patient alive. I agree that the hospital can legitimately say “we are a not-for-profit institution and we can’t afford to keep this kid alive when there is no possibility of recovery and the kid is clinically dead.” But if cost is not an issue, I’m not sure that their approach is right.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Good article. Thanks.