Tuesday, November 18, 2008

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.

2 comments:

tina FCD said...

First of all, could you translate that comment from....?

The lungs were being kept alive by artificial means, if that wasn't being used, he would die, right?
Why not just ask their god to intervene?

I'm sorry for this family's loss.
If doctors told me my child was clinically brain dead, I would not want to keep them "alive" by artificial means. That's just my opinion.

Stardust said...

Hi tina, I think that was just a spammer since the same jibberish was left under several posts.

They were trying to rationalize that according to their religion their son was alive as long as he was breathing and his heart beating. They were doing all they could to just keep him with them.

I posted this to show that those who cling to religion most are often those who seem to believe the least. If only some of these nutty Christians who do not believe in medical intervention when their child would be cured with it would want to bow to medical science so "faithfully."