DYING PATIENT KEPT ALIVE Solomon B. Freehof
QUESTION: Is a doctor duty bound to continue making efforts to keep a patient alive even if the patient is dying and in great pain, or has arrived at the stage of utter helplessness in bodily functions? The question is asked with regard to Jewish law or the ethics implied in Jewish law.(Dr. Regina Stolz Greenebaum, Pittsburgh , PA )
ANSWER: The question does not ask whether it is permitted to put to death a patient who is suffering, that is, euthanasia. As for euthanasia, it is clear that this is forbidden by Jewish law. We have no right to take life, except in the case where one person is pursuing another to destroy him. In that case the pursuer may be stopped, even at the risk of destroying his life. It is on this basis of stopping a“destroyer” or an“attacker” that Jewish law requires that if a child is being born and it becomes evident that its birth will kill the mother, the child must be destroyed in order that he does not kill the mother(Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 425: 2). The child is looked upon as“a pursuer, a murderer,” and his life may be taken for that reason. But other than in such a case (and of course after legal conviction of a criminal), no human life may be taken. Even when a person is dying, one may not purposely take the pillow from under his head, or make any extra disturbance, in order to hasten his death(Shulhan Arukh, Yore Deah 339). In other words, the act of killing a patient, for whatever motive, is absolutely forbidden.
This is mentioned merely for the sake of completeness. You do not ask whether it is permitted to kill a patient(euthanasia). You ask only whether Jewish law or its implied ethics require that a doctor keep any patient alive by force when the patient 1s manifestly dying and is in pain or has lost all control of bodily
functions.