SUICIDE, ASSISTED SUICIDE, ACTIVE EUTHANASIA

16. Reform Judaism operates with an ethic which is independent of the halakhah and functions as a hermeneutical device to critique the halakhah.

17. David Hartman A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism, New York , 1985 pp. 272-273.

18. It is the relationship of the individual to the historical experience of the community which is crucial. Implied in being Jewish , is the connection to the covenant. The whole discussion is relevant only to someone who is willing to live within a covenantal framework.

19. These concepts are particularly important when making decisions about life and death. We are dealing with individuals each of whom is of infinite worth but we do not deal with them in isolation, for how we treat them reflects on the society as a whole.

20. Eugenics, euthanasia for mentally retarded, murder of homosexuals as preludes to the mass destruction of Jews serve as a warning. Some argue that these acts in and of themselves are sufficient to oppose assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia. The"slippery slope” is too steep to risk the inevitable fall.

21. The potential for the full development of a judaically based law(I deliberately avoided the use of the word halakhah here for a number of reasons not germane to this paper.) in Israel is an exciting possibility fraught with many difficulties and significant questions. Some halakhists argue that certain acts would be permitted in a Jewish state operating with the Jewish understanding of the sacredness of human life which would not be permitted in non-Jewish societies where the protections against abuse are not as great. While I am not at all sure that this is true, it does again serve as a warning that if we permit the termination of life in some extreme circumstances, we may inadvertently diminish the protection of weak, vulnerable and innocent life.

22. Elliot N. Dorff "A Jewish Approach to End-Stage Medical Care", Conservative Judaism , Vol. XLII,#3 Spring, 1991, p. 5. The halakhic method pursued in Elliot Dorff ’s paper has much in common with the covenantal method. I believe that in liberal halakhic circles the methods overlap either explicitly or implicitly.

23. The overwhelming opinion of halakhic authorities, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, opposes euthanasia whether in the form of suicide, assisted suicide, or physician initiated. The following statements from Reform responsa are representative. Israel Bettan in 1950 wrote,"The Jewish ideal of the sanctity of human life and the supreme value of the individual soul would suffer incalculable harm if, contrary to the moral law, men were at liberty to determine the conditions under which they might put an end to their own lives and the lives of other men." American Reform Responsa p. 263. A finer distinction between removing impediments rather than hastening death may be summarized in the statement of Solomon B. Freehof in 1969" To Sum up: If the patient is a hopelessly dying patient, the physician has no duty to keep him alive a little longer. He is entitled

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