Religion Compels Family To Keep Son On Life Support After Neural Activity Stopped
A family’s religion compels them to continue life support, even after all neural activity in the brain stops. For the past few days, a machine has continued to inflate and deflate his lungs. As of late Friday afternoon, his heart was still beating with the help of a cocktail of intravenous drugs and adrenaline.
That heartbeat has prompted Motls parents, who are Orthodox Jews, to refuse the hospitals request to remove all artificial life support.
Under some interpretations of Jewish religious law, including the one accepted by the familys Hasidic sect, death occurs only when the heart and lungs stop functioning.
That means Motl “is alive, and his family has a religious obligation to secure all necessary and appropriate medical treatment to keep him alive,” the familys attorney wrote in a court filing this week.
The family has asked the hospital to leave the breathing machine on and keep administering drugs until the boys heart and lungs no longer respond.
Disagreements between families and medical providers over when to end care for terminally ill patients are common, experts say, but this case wound up in court with unusual speed.
Unlike Terri Schiavo or Karen Ann Quinlan, who became the subjects of right-to-die battles when they suffered brain damage and became unconscious, Motls condition has deteriorated beyond a persistent vegetative state, his physicians say. His brain has died entirely, according to an affidavit filed by one of his doctors.
His eyes are fixed and dilated. His body neither moves nor responds to stimulation. His brain stem shows no electrical function, and his brain tissue has begun to decompose.
“This is death at its simplest,” the hospitals lawyers wrote in a court filing.
The hospital said it would help the family move what it called the boys “earthly remains” to another medical facility, but has found none willing to accept a brain-dead child.
The dispute wound up in court Sunday, when the family asked a federal judge to block the hospital from doing any further tests for brain activity.
Jeffrey I. Zuckerman, the attorney for Motls parents, says they have been “utterly shattered” by the hospitals actions.
He stressed that the familys demand for continued life support was based on their obligations under religious law, not an unrealistic hope that their boy will recover.
“You can always hope for a miracle, but if you are asking if they are in denial about their childs medical condition, no, they are not,” Zuckerman said.
A hearing was scheduled for Monday, but Childrens National Medical Center said it would ask for a postponement until Wednesday.
“We respect the familys beliefs, and have tried since the patients arrival in June to work closely with them in a spirit of mutual respect,” the hospital said in a written statement.
Source: riprj