17 Nov
Latest, Religion

"Jewish Schaivo" Motl Brody Passes Away

By Benjamin Schuman-Stoler Earlier last week we wrote about the case of Motl Brody, the Orthodox Jewish boy from New York whose illness set off an emotional controversy. Because he couldn't perform basic unconscious functions, doctors at Children's National Medical Center proclaimed young Motl brain dead and planned to take him off life support, thereby setting off a legal, religious, and moral controversy throughout the Jewish community. The Brody family sued the hospital last week, claiming that the Jewish definition of death did not include brain death. The controversy did not play out, however, as Motl Brody's heart stopped beating this past Saturday. The Brody's attorney, Jeffery I. Zuckerman, said, "In the end, nature took its course before the judicial system ran its course." Yeshiva World News, the website that organized support for the Brodys' case, had only a...

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07 Nov
Latest, Religion

The Jewish Schaivo Dilemma

The Washington Post reported today on a controversial circumstance regarding an Orthodox Jewish boy on life support. The boy, Motl Brody, has an aggressive brain tumor and currently has no brain activity—he cannot breathe on his own. His family's lawyers, however, sued to contend that Jewish law and the Jewish definition of death does not recognize brain death. The Post says: In court papers, the hospital says treating him is "offensive to good medical ethics" because, unlike the highly publicized cases of Terri Schiavo and Karen Ann Quinlan, the boy has no brain activity... Doctors at Children's performed various tests on Motl to see whether that structure is working. The tests included briefly removing the boy from the ventilator. Normally, the brainstem stimulates breathing, even if the efforts are inadequate, as carbon dioxide builds up in the blood....

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