View From a Height

Jewish Law on Terry Schiavo

Some have asked what the Jewish take is on Terry Schiavo. As usual, the Orthodox Jew looks to Jewish law or Halachah, first for an answer, and then for guidance. In this case, there's an answer.

Under Jewish law - which obviously doesn't apply to Christians living in a country of secular laws - clearly forbids removing the feeding tube. If someone is alive, even if he is severely incapacitated, you can't do anything to hasten his death.

Terry Schiavo simply does not meet the qualifications for being dead. She's not even close. She's not brain dead. Her heart and lungs are still functioning. She's just severely incapacitated. She may or may never be rehabililtated.

Now, just because you can't hasten death doesn't mean you have to endlessly extend physical function. There is always the option of not beginning certain treatments in the first place. Thus the critical importantce of a living will. About a decade ago, the Rabbinical Council of America approved a living will that conforms to Jewish legal standards, acceptable to American courts.

The question of life-saving, or even life-extending medical technology is a difficult and complex one, subject to many distinctions among physical states, measures required, relationships to the afflicted, and so one. Under Jewish law, though, this isn't a hard case at all.

From a personal point of view, I find it horrifying that we're dehydrating a woman to death, and Dickensian that our legal system can't get itself sorted out long enough to prevent it.