Posted on 11/07/2008 12:13:12 PM PST 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."
While Orthodox Jews do not believe in brain death, other religions, like Catholicism, do.
"We do accept the total brain-dead criteria," Rev. Alfred Cioffi, S.T.D., Ph.D., of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, said. He noted that there are two definitions of death.
"The classical definition is the cessation of heartbeat and respiration. It typically doesn't require much equipment to detect that," he said. "The neurological definition requires an Electroencephalogram (EEG). If it's a flat line, there are no brain waves."
In cases of a coma or trauma to the head, it is possible to have partial brain death in the cerebral cortex. Catholics believe a person must have total brain death, however, to discontinue life support. In total brain death, even the brain stem, which controls involuntary activities like heartbeat, breathing and digestion, among others, ceases to function.
"As long as person has total brain death, we accept that person has died," Rev. Cioffi said. He noted, "Even a corpse requires dignity and proper handling but may be disconnected from vital support. A corpse may be sustained on vital support systems for organ donation because once there is death, there is disintegration."
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DC hospital suing to cease life support on youth November 7, 2008 — 12:17pm ET | By Dan Bowman http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/dc-hospital-suing-cease-life-support-youth/2008-11-07
At Children's Medical Center in Washington, D.C., a Brooklyn youth is at the center of a controversy about whether the hospital has a right to discontinue life support after ruling the boy brain dead this past Tuesday evening. The boy, 12-year-old Motl Brody, was diagnosed with a "severe form of brain cancer," and had been at the D.C. hospital for six months. After tests revealed no brain activity, doctors wanted to end life support; the boy's parents, Eluzer and Miriam Brody, disagree with that decision, citing that their religion (they are Orthodox Jews) "does not define death as cessation of brain function alone."
A D.C. Superior Court hearing is scheduled for Monday to determine whether the hospital will be able to take the boy off of life support. The law in D.C. states that doctors can declare a patient dead if there is no brain activity. "This child has ceased to exist by every medical definition," wrote Sophia Smith, one of the boy's doctors, in court papers. "Ethically, there is no appropriate treatment except removal of the ventilator and of the drugs."
The parents' attorney, Jeffrey Zuckerman, argues that ceasing life support would "infringe upon religious freedom."
"Under Jewish law and their faith, there is no such thing as brain death," he said. "Their religious beliefs are entitled to respect."
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Does anyone know the mother’s name?
Miriam to answer my own question.
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.
Glioblastoma? Astrocytoma? Sad.
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.
God bless the family, and may His hand guide them.
How is his heart beating or is he on a Bypass machine?
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.
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 ...
Shouldn’t the decision be made by whoever is paying the bills?
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.
Yes.
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.
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
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.
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.
In the new America, some religion's beliefs are more sacred than others.
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.
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