The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #109110 Message #2277758
Posted By: GUEST,Guest
02-Mar-08 - 06:51 PM
Thread Name: BS: To Pull Or Not To Pull The Plug
Subject: RE: BS: To Pull Or Not To Pull The Plug
In the case of our family, with five sibs, we did NOT all agree. Which is why we were so thankful our mom chose one of us to make the legal/medical decisions of when to provide/withhold care.
I find it hard to take on board what you are saying Rabbi Sol, that once a patient is MEDICALLY put on life support, that there is Jewish canon law that ONLY THEN kicks in.
In what century was that canon law established, considering that even in the best of circumstances, medically intervening in the death process by putting a patient on a respirator often doesn't keep them alive anyway?
No, this sounds to me like a case where the family, including the patient, may well have a strong desire to claim there are religious reasons to extend this care to this man. But that doesn't mean that doctors can ethically do what the family is demanding of them.
Doctors have ethical codes and legal codes they too must abide by, and they don't shift based upon the religion of the patient and the family, thank goodness. In a secular democratic society, medical decisions should never be predicated upon religious beliefs, unless the patient is in a facility governed by that religion. If this family feels so strongly about this, why didn't they move their father to a Jewish care center?
St. Paul MN isn't exactly the population epicenter for Jews in the US, yet my mother spent time in a Jewish long term care center--twice--as her health declined. She said (and we agreed, to a certain extent) she received good quality care there. Except they nearly killed her, for failing to treat her for a Clostridium difficile bacterial infection. They thought she was just being a drama queen (the horrific truth is how often the medical complaints of elderly women are dismissed by health care providers), or maybe was 'just depressed' as they told us as our mother lay near death when she had been the picture of health two days prior. And that one isn't even the worst horror story we can tell. She was still living independently in her own senior apt. when that happened, and was in the the long term care center receiving rehabilitation after surgery & a fall.