The believers among us are most apt to argue about when life begins. Does life begin at birth, at conception or somewhere in-between? The question of when death occurs is not asked often since a fortuitous death by accident or natural death by illness occurs out of the control of the recently deceased.
However, we have had cases where death has occurred somewhere in the middle, leaving a dilemma for bystanders who see medical professionals and grief-stricken relatives arguing about the state of the patient and the likely outcome of a course of treatment. The most well-known case of recent times was that of Terri Schiavo, who existed in a persistent vegetative state without any reasonable chance of recovery and whose sole existence was provided through parenteral nutrition.
Today, we have in the news yet another case of the game of When Does Death Occur.1 A young boy named Motl Brody is confined to a hospital following unsuccessful treament of cancer — unfortunately, Motl’s brain stem has “no electrical function”. Motl is dead. While this case would simply end by the patient being removed from life support, Motl’s parents are Hasidic Jews who follow their religious definition of death: the cessation of lung and heart functions.2 The irony is that the life support system that supports Motl is entirely man-made and without it Motl’s body would immediately cease to function. The religious definition of death has collided with technology.
How long can medical technology keep Motl’s body alive to satisfy the Judaic definition of non-death? Though no one knows for sure, Motl could live another 10 or 20 years before the actual tissues of his heart or lungs disintegrate (Motl is currently 12 years old). Yes, he is being pumped full of drugs that do the things that his endocrine system cannot since there is zero neurological function. Do we allow religious beliefs, however antiquated or insufficient to deal with modern life, continue to rule the rest of us?
With all due respect to grief-stricken families who wish to allow their loved ones to be maintained, in perpetuity, by a machine that replaces all bodily functions while the standard human functions are irretrievably gone, we should demand that logic and reason withstand the emotional pleas or the silly, outdated religious definitions of when life begins or when death occurs. We are a nation of secular laws that continually suffers from the intrusions of those who believe that an ancient book which speaks of an imaginary sky-daddy somehow should take precedence over the intellect of the human mind.
It will now be up the court system to decide if Motl Brody has passed away. If the court wishes to decide that Motl has not passed away, whether by acquiescing to a religious definition of death (a heinous outcome) or by concluding by some other means that Motl is still alive, the court system should also find that since there is no reasonable hope of rehabilitating Motl to a state which can be considered minimally interactive for a human, the family can surely keep the loved one alive if the family is willing to pay for the entire cost.
Though it is unlikely that the court system will find in favor of The Brodys to keep young Motl connected to life support, even if the court system agrees with the religious beliefs of The Brodys there should be no further demands placed upon those who do not share the same religious beliefs.
UPDATE
Motl Brody has died. He was still on life support at the time of his death, so the legal issue of death is no longer present.3
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- MSNBC.com: NY Family opposes end to care for brain-dead boy. November 8, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27603719/ [<]
- See Transplantation Ethics, Chapter 7, The Conscience Clause: How Much Individual Choice Can Society Tolerate in Defining Death?, by Robert M. Veatch. http://books.google.com/books?id=aNcbKssW30IC&printsec=frontcover#PPA114,M1 [<]
- WashingtonPost.com: Boy whose religious parents battled hospital dies. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/16/AR2008111601226_pf.html [<]
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