Boy whose relgious parents battled hospital dies

This is such a sad story of a 12-year-old boy who lost his battle with brain cancer. When I read the headline above I figured it was another crazy Christian family withholding medical treatments from their child while just relying on their faith, and “God’s will”. But this story is totally opposite and involves an Orthodox Jewish family. The parents had been fighting to keep their son alive via a ventilator despite him being declared brain dead and that his bodily functions had ceased. The only thing a ventilator was doing was keeping his lungs working, but the parents demanded that the machine not be turned off.

NEW YORK – A 12-year-old New York boy with brain cancer has died after his family battled a hospital to keep him on a ventilator.

The lawyer for the Orthodox Jewish family says Motl Brody’s bodily functions ceased Saturday. A machine had continued to work his lungs after he was pronounced dead Nov. 4 at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

The boy had already been declared brain dead, but some adherents of Jewish religious law say death occurs only when the heart and lungs stop functioning.

The family had asked a judge to prevent further tests for brain activity. The hospital argued that its “scarce resources” were being used “for the preservation of a deceased body.”

This is an odd twist, in their extreme heartbreak, of treating a machine of medical science as some sort of god. Because no god comes to comfort. No god comes to save the children. No gods come.