which might help indicate what Jewish tradition would have said in 2 situation such as this one which now occurs frequently in modern hospitals.
The Mishnah (Oholot VII.6) deals with a question which involves the choosing between one life and another. A mother is apparently dying because of the childbirth. Either she or her child can be saved. Which one should it be? The law is that the child is looked upon as an assailant and therefore may be destroyed before he kills the mother. Therefore, the unborn child should be destroyed, and the mother saved. If, however, the child puts forth its head, then it may no longer be destroyed. It is now considered a separate person, and now the law is thus stated:"We do not dispose of[or push aside] one person in favor of another"(cf. also Sanhedrin 72b). This is stated as the fixed law in the Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 425.2).
This clear-cut principle that we may not save one life at the expense of another seemed at first glance to be somewhat contradicted by the discussion in the Mishnah and the Talmud as to the relative respect to be paid to a father and to a teacher. This Mishnah (Babe Metzia 11. 11) says that if a person finds an object lost by his father and another object lost by his teacher, he must first return the one lost by his teacher. The Mishnah explains the reasons as follows:"For his father has brought him into the light of this world, while his teacher, who teaches him wisdom, has brought him into the light of the world to come." Upo? that basis the Mishnah continues to say that if both his father and his teacher are held in captivity, he must first redeem his teacher and afte! that redeem his father. This is discussed in the Talmud in Baba Metzil 33a. and is codified as law by Maimonides in Yad Hil. Avodah 12.2 and in the Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 242.34. All this seems to contradict the principle that you may not choose one life to save in preference 1 another, but actually this is not so. The Rabbis do not speak here of such an irreversible fact as death, but only at most of captivity in which both are to be saved(except, of course, that they give the order as to who should be saved first). When it comes to an actual matter of life or death,
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