150 Alan Sokobin

gious belief.’ To date there have been no cases before either New Jersey or federal courts testing this statute.

VI

Religion and government not only attempt to define the moment of death, but when death is artificially prolonged, they must attempt to regulate how and when death is permitted. One of the most disturbing and distressing questions of our era is, when can one remove a patient, artificially maintained on life support sys­tems, from that technologically supported existence and permit total death?'® Even the phraseology of the question utilizing the term“total death” implies that there are or may be circumstances where a person is in an intermediate stage between life and death. Peter Singer 's ethically stimulating book'®! challenges the commonly accepted definitions of death. The examples offered are spiritually and morally painful. They bring together the triad of ethical concerns, the legal processes and the humane cen­science of people pondering the ultimate verities of life and death as they face an agonizing triangle of moral uncertainty. Singer cites the case of twenty-one year old Joey Fiori who had an acci­dent in 1971. He has been in a medically maintained persistent vegetative state for over twenty years. His mother has petitioned the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to remove him from his feeding tube but the State Superior Court refused to respond to her request. Singer poses the question, is a non-cognizant, non­responsive, non-thinking but functioning body, alive?6?

Lord Jakobovits offers a vividly dramatic example of the new ability to maintain some life functions, which expands on Singer 's troubling question.

In an effort to prove that the heart can continue to beat long after the brain has completely ceased to function, an operation was performed where a pregnant sheep was decapitated, maintained by artificial ventilation for several hours and then successfully delivered of a healthy lamb. There can be no argument that the sheep was dead, since it had been decapitated. Medically and halakhically, a dead sheep cannot contain a viable fetus, but this is what happened.!¢®

Singer gives examples involving human beings that point to the ethical and legal difficulties that develop from our new tech­