SELECTED REFORM RESPONSA

embodied in the law(Maimonides , Yad Hilhot Yesodei Torah V.5). There is some disagreement about whether the man needs to be a known criminal before he is surrendered to save the lives of all the others, or whether it is sufficient if the brigands named him and it is not we who have selected him. See the discussion by Joseph Karo in Kesef Mishneh to the law in Maimonides .

The bearing of this discussion on the case in point is that actually the other patients, who will not be given the rare remedy, have not been directly selected for death. They have already been marked for death by forces beyond the physician’s control(as by the brigands in this case), and if they die, it is not directly the physician’s fault. They would die anyhow. It is not he who has really named them for death.

It is also clear from this aversion against turning someone over to death in order to save someone else, or even a group, that it would be absolutely forbidden by the spirit of Jewish law to hasten the death of some terminal patient already marked for death in order to take

something from his body in order to save another patient or for the Increase of medical knowledge.

But so far all of the incidents cited involve a direct choice betwee» living and healthy people as to who should live and who should die. The case involved in the question asked is of people who are dying. Is there any guidance in thé law for choosing between people who are already marked for death? It is possible to say that, since they are already dying, we should just let them all die and not attempt the bitter choice of picking one of them to live. Is such a"hands-off" attitude Permissible?

This very question, by close analogy, is discussed in the Talmud (Baba Metzia, 62a). The case is stated as follows: Two men are walking (Presumably in the desert). They have one pitcher of water which contains enough to keep only one of them alive long enough to Cross the desert safely. If both of them drink, they will both die. If one drinks, he

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