will hasten his death. In order to establish death you must prove the absence of all three conditions(set by the Hatam Sofer : an inanimate body, no pulse and no breathing)... Since there is no definition(of brain stem death) in the Talmud , we cannot invent a new definition in our time. Only when the Sanhedrin will be established, will we have the power to determine whether brain stem death is considered death or not. Until then, he said, it is forbidden to extract his heart or any other organ as long as his heart is beating.*
R. Auerbach and another ultra-orthodox colleague , Rabbi Yosef Elyashiv published the following proclamation on 18 Menahem Av, 5751(29 July, 1991):
Behold, any time that the donor’s heart is beating, even in the case that his entire brain, including the brain stem, is not functioning at all, which is called’brain death’, our judgement is that there is no keiter(no permission) whatsoever to remove any of his organs; doing so is a form of murder."
Auerbach strictly forbids disconnecting a brain death patient from life supporting systems:
In our day if a patient is still connected to the artificial respirator which doesn’t allow him to die, his halakhic position is that part of him is alive since his heart is beating, even though this is only because of the
n2s
respirator...
Eliezer Yehudah Waldenberg, a member of the Ber Hadin
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