Orthodox Jewish perspectives on withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment

The Jewish religious tradition summons its adherents to save life. For religious Jews preservation of life is the ultimate religious commandment. At the same time Jewish law recognizes that the agony of a moribund person may not be stretched. When the time to die has come this has to be respected. T...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Baeke, Goedele (Author) ; Wils, Jean-Pierre 1957- (Author) ; Broeckaert, Bert (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2011
In: Nursing ethics
Year: 2011, Volume: 18, Issue: 6, Pages: 835-846
Further subjects:B withholding
B End-of-life
B life-sustaining treatment
B Judaism
B Bioethics
B withdrawing
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:The Jewish religious tradition summons its adherents to save life. For religious Jews preservation of life is the ultimate religious commandment. At the same time Jewish law recognizes that the agony of a moribund person may not be stretched. When the time to die has come this has to be respected. The process of dying should not needlessly be prolonged. We discuss the position of two prominent Orthodox Jewish authorities – the late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rabbi J David Bleich – towards the role of life-sustaining treatment in end-of-life care. From the review, the characteristic halachic and heterogeneous character of Jewish ethical reasoning appears. The specificity of Jewish dealing with ethical dilemmas in health care indicates the importance for contemporary healthcare professionals of providing care which is sensitive to a patient’s culture and worldview.
ISSN:1477-0989
Contains:Enthalten in: Nursing ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0969733011408051