Orthodox Jews Sue To Keep Brain Dead Son On Life Support-DC hospital suing to cease life support

The Bulletin ^ | 11-7-08 | Erin Maguire

[SJackson]

Seems like we've been here before. In anticipation of the question, there appear to be no financial considerations.

[SJackson]

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[MeanWestTexan]

Does anyone know the mother’s name?

[MeanWestTexan]

Miriam to answer my own question.

[MAD-AS-HELL]

Sorry, but the family is trying to have it both ways. If they don’t believe the child is dead, then take him off life support and take him home. By keeping him on life support they are contradicting their own beliefs because they know full well it’s the life support that is keeping him alive.

[Westlander]

Glioblastoma? Astrocytoma? Sad.

[Alberta's Child]

These are always difficult cases to judge, especially when financial considerations would tend to make a lot of this moot. What makes them so difficult is that they involve two contradictory impulses on the part of a person's family and others with a financial stake in the outcome of the medical care.

1. Preserve/protect human life whenever possible.

2. Avoid prolonging life "unnecessarily" (and this is always the difficult part) when a tremendous financial burden would be placed on others in a fruitless attempt to help a patient recover.

[JimRed]

God bless the family, and may His hand guide them.

[Malsua]

How is his heart beating or is he on a Bypass machine?

[SJackson]

What makes them so difficult is that they involve two contradictory impulses on the part of a person's family and others with a financial stake in the outcome of the medical care.

I think the question here is one of who makes that decision, the family based on their beliefs, or the state. The decision is clear to the Brodys, this is not prolonging life "unnecessarily", removing him from life support would be killing, not necessarily murder.

[SJackson]

Per other articles he's on a ventilator and iv medication. Apparently the hospital has offered to transfer him to a hospital in New York, but don't expect him to survive the trip more than a half hour. A few other articles.

Conservative Jews battle hospital over life of brain-dead child

Jewish Law's Meaning of Death Nears Court Fight

Hospital Seeks to Remove Boy's Life Support, Religion Doesn't ...

HOSPITAL SEEKS TO PULL PLUG ON BRAIN-DEAD BOY, 12

[BamaGirl]

Shouldn’t the decision be made by whoever is paying the bills?

[trumandogz]

I cannot imagine the pain the family must be going through and i will pray for them and their son, I also pray that they can let him go peacefully and that he will go in peace.

However, if they are not paying the hospital bill, they cannot expect the hospital and or tax payer to continue such futile treatment.

[trumandogz]

Yes.

[Alberta's Child]

This is why the state should never be involved in medical care in the first place. Once you turn over the financial responsibilities for your medical care to the state, you will always run the risk of having the state make some very calculated, pragmatic decisions like this.

[silverleaf]

I don’t think this child’s condition is anywhere near that of Terry Schiavo nor is there any hope whatsoever of recovery for the child-

for Terry, who was on minimal support compared to this child, there was medical dissent about her prognosis and it was about quality of life, not quantity

Having read between the lines, not only the brain but this child’s entire body is disintegrating as the parents insist the machines keep pumping

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The hospital is missing a research bet, here. That is, will his brain cancer continue to grow? Assuming so, then what happens? As morbid as it sounds, there are any number of discoveries that can be made with very advanced cancer, rarely seen in a still living body.

I know this sounds cold, but the truth is that it gives his parents what they need for their son, even if there is no love left for him by the doctors.

[SJackson]

Shouldn’t the decision be made by whoever is paying the bills?

The Washington Post article contains the most information, but would have had to be excerpted.

Cost is a legitimate concern, but isn't a consideration. Whether because of insurance or personal assets I don't know, but the parents are able to pay the bills.

Utilization could be a concern, but the pediatric intensive care unit has 20 of 32 beds occupied, so apparently isn't an issue.

It boils down to who makes the decision, the individual or the state. I should note that the parents position is a conventional Orthodox position.

[onemiddleamerican]

Sad to say this, but I suspect that if this was the son of a devout Muslim family arguing that cessation of heartbeat and not brain activity is how their faith decides death, the hospital would not be fighting to shut the machines down.

In the new America, some religion's beliefs are more sacred than others.

[Yaelle]

I do not understand. If total brain death = cessation of HB and breathing, why is his heart still beating? If there is a machine forcing his breathing and heart beat, wouldn’t that be understood by the rabbis and laws as “artificial?” Thus stopping an artificial control of these activities would show that the precious boy was Not doing the breathing or making his heart beat.

Very sad. I don’t know whether to wish a refuah shelemah in this case but I do just in case.

I disagree with Jewish teachings about some areas of life because I do not believe that someone needs to take a first breath to be alive, and I am furious with the ruling that a family cannot have a full Jewish burial for a stillborn child. It would be such a comfort for the grieving family. I feel that if the rabbis a millenium + ago had only seen an ultrasound image they would have ruled differently. And I believe G-d does rule differently. Maybe this example is similar if the poor boy is actually not breathing or living but a machine is forcing it.