Thread by SJackson.
Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. took the family of a 12-year-old Orthodox Jewish boy on life support to court yesterday.
Motl Brody's family wants to keep their brain-dead son on mechanical assistance for religious reasons, but the hospital said its resources are being used to preserve a deceased body. The case is currently disputed in the D.C. Superior Court.
Mr. Brody, under care for brain cancer, was pronounced dead Tuesday night after tests showed no signs of brain activity. His family said their Orthodox Jewish faith does not define death as cessation of brain function alone. The hospital argued that Mr. Brody is dead, and no religious principle can deny that.
"This child has ceased to exist by every medical definition," Sophia Smith, one of Mr. Brody's physicians, wrote in court papers. "There is no activity in any portion of his brain, including the brain stem."
Kenneth H. Rosenau, an attorney for the hospital, told the Washington Post, "There is no religious principle at issue in this case, but a clash of life and death."
The hospital's lawyers noted that alternative care facilities had denied acceptance of the boy because he is brain-dead.
Jeffery Zuckerman, the Brody family's lawyer, is challenging the hospital's plans to take Mr. Brody off life support on the grounds that religious beliefs must be respected under federal law.
"Under Jewish law and their faith, there is no such thing as brain death," he told to the Washington Post. "Their religious beliefs are entitled to respect."
Some states like New York and New Jersey have provisions in their laws and regulations that make exceptions for Orthodox Jews in similar instances. Washington, D.C. does not.
Rabbi Moshe Bogomilsky of Congregation Yeshiva of in Crown Heights, New York agreed with the Brody family's wishes. "There are some that feel brain-dead is sufficient [to declare a person's death]," said. "But the authoritative [Orthodox Jewish] opinion is we follow the heartbeat to declare the difference between life and death."
"As long as the heart is beating, he's alive," he added. "It may not be the best situation, but if a person's alive, we can't do anything that would shorten a life for a person."
In situations where congregants have a choice of whether or not their loved one should go on life support, Rabbi Bogomilsky said he would "encourage them to go on life support."
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"We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will give you no rest."