Jewish Bioethics (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Jewish Bioethics Edward Simon Jewish Bioethics, by Fred Rosner and J. David Bleich. Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 2000. 454 pp. $24.95. Some books can be safely recommended just by looking at their cover. The editors (outstanding experts in medicine and Jewish law) and the publisher speak for themselves. Sometimes you will be fooled. This book falls in between. It is basically a reprint of a classic 1979 text which itself is a compilation of slightly updated older articles. In this “augmented” edition only three short articles have been added: “Pigeons as a Remedy for Jaundice,” “Sex Preselection,” and “Research on the Newly Dead.” Jewish law is not static. It evolves constantly as new problems arise and new insights are accepted. Not infrequently, modern science will raise not only new issues (microwave ovens, heart transplants) but new solutions to old problems (shabbos clocks, noninvasive procedures). On the other hand, the pace of innovation is not nearly as fast as that of scientific discoveries, so it is not surprising that a twenty-year-old work should still be a valuable reference. Furthermore, Jewish law is firmly rooted in classic texts (Torah and Talmud) and ancient commentaries (Maimonides), and those do not change at all. The contributors to this volume are internationally known experts in medicine, rabbinics, or ethics, often in more than one of them. If the essays are not quite “state of the art,” they will nevertheless illustrate the thought processes involved and show the reader the dimensions of the problem and the different points of view involved. “Autopsy in Jewish Law and the Israeli Autopsy Controversy,” by Fred Rosner, is a case in point. When the article was written in 1971, the problem of autopsies was literally ripping the country apart. Many people, religious and otherwise, were afraid to go to the most prominent hospitals in the country for fear that their body parts would be discarded. In more than a few instances this fear was well founded. By 1977 things had settled down, but the controversy was still simmering, since the original laws were [End Page 147] still in place. Today the furor is gone. But what, if anything, has actually changed? A page or even a paragraph updating the situation would have been most welcome. But the discussion of Jewish law (halacha) remains valid. The basic law is derived from Deut. 21:22–23: “And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree but thou shalt surely bury him the same day.” What does this have to do with autopsies? The Talmud (Sanhedrin 47a) explains that just as hanging on a tree all night is a disgrace to the human body, so too any other disgraceful action (such as dissection and destruction of organs) is prohibited. And if the Torah shows such concern for a murderer, how much more so for the rest of us. Other objections to autopsy are addressed elsewhere in the Talmud. A major concern is the need to bury the body as quickly as possible. (The current custom in the United States of delaying one or two days is to allow the family to gather and hence increase the honor paid to the deceased.) Another is the prohibition of deriving any benefit from the dead. For this reason it is questionable if one can even sit on a tombstone. What then about organ transplants? This is covered by two other articles, one by Dr. Rosner, the other by Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch. The problem has been widely discussed. The key ruling is that the Torah states that it provides “laws to live by,” and therefore the prohibition against desecrating the dead is overshadowed by the sanctity of life and the need to preserve it. Similarly, autopsies in general can be performed only if they will be of immediate benefit to another patient. How does the age of the internet change these parameters? In fact, Dr. Rosner’s account touches on this issue, but it is left to the reader to extrapolate his conclusions twenty years into the future...