Biomedical subjects
Elliot N Dorff
Publications and source records attributed to Elliot N Dorff.
Applying traditional Jewish law to PVS.
Jewish law allows removal of life-support systems that are impeding the natural process of dying in a terminally ill patient, but it forbids hastening that process. The tradition measures death primarily in terms of cessation of respiration and, for some, cessation of heartbeat as well. Nevertheless, most, but not all, rabbis writing on bioethics permit the use of full brain death (including the brain stem) to determine death, either because the apnea test now used in consort with other neurological criteria to determine brain death fulfills the tradition's demand for cessation of respiration, or because brain death amounts to decapitation, another traditional sign of death. Since PVS patients fulfill none of these criteria, most rabbis consider them alive, but some would permit withholding or withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration.
Responsibilities for the provision of health care.
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Paying for medical care: a Jewish view.
According to Jewish law, there is a clear obligation to try to heal, and this duty devolves upon both the physician and the society. Jewish sources make it clear that health care is not only an individual and familial responsibility, but also a communal one. This social aspect of health care manifests itself in Jewish law in two ways: first, no community is complete until it has the personnel (and, one assumes, the facilities) to provide health care; second, the community must pay for the health care of those who cannot afford it as part of its provision for the poor. The community, in turn, must use its resources wisely, which is the moral basis within the Jewish tradition for some system of managed care. The community must balance its commitment to provide health care with the provision of other services.
Assisted suicide: a Jewish perspective.
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The tyranny of technology.
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Symposium on religious law: Roman Catholic, Islamic, and Jewish treatment of familial issues, including education, abortion, in vitro fertilization, prenuptial agreements, contraception, and marital fraud.
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"No, thank you, doctor.
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"A time to be born and a time to die": a Jewish medical directive for health care.
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A Jewish approach to end-stage medical care.
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Moral distinctions.
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Modern medicine and Jewish values.
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