15-21 Jul

Q: What are the major challenges to Jewish medical ethics in the future?

ABSTRACT

Although the term Jewish Medical Ethics first came into use in the 1950s, and the popular interest is a recent phenomenon, their relevance and acceptance has been part of the fabric of the Jewish people since Sinai. Rabbinical rulings dealing with health and medicine, based on the commandments in the Pentateuch and their elaboration in the Talmud and codes of Jewish law, have come down to us over the centuries, and new ones are issued every year. The collection of such rabbinical rulings is know as halakha-the right path. Halakha is a dynamic and ongoing process covering all aspects of life. It is not derived by philosophic speculation about contrived situations. This is why most Jewish medical ethicists emphasize the doctor-patient relationship; most of the questions presented for adjudication belong to this category. They were posed by doctors or patients or their families.

In the future, it is expected that more questions will be submitted in non-medical areas that have a profound impact on health and medical treatment. Halakha will have to come to grips with a shrinking world and its sociological overtones: how Jewish doctors (and a Jewish state) deal with communities that have different values from ours about life and death, who practice idolatry, non-Western medicine, and what we might consider cruelty-the whole field of cross-cultural ethics.

But the much more serious problem will be the very status of medical halakha in a Jewish community, the majority of which are apathetic to (and even antagonistic to) halakha. Perhaps the most sensitive challenge of all will derive from halakhic rulings emanating from a "pluralistic" rabbinate, some of whom have rejected much of the halakha laid down in the past. Is compromise possible in matters of life and death?

A: I would like to cite a few of the "trends and currents" suggested by Rabbi Jakobovits in 1997:

The Rabbi predicted that the system of rabbinic rulings by recognized and universally accepted poskim will remain a permanent feature of Jewish medical ethics and that the interest in the subject will increase, if only because the community of doctors and patients who seek and respect these rulings is experiencing significant growth. He further suggested that the major ethical problem facing medicine in the future will be the struggle to preserve man's spirituality and humanity against the encroachment of mechanization, and its implications in such areas as genetic engineering and artificial generation of life.

He foresaw the challenge to medical halakha to resolve two major disputes that have polarized the poskim of our generation:

1) the prohibition/permissibility of amniocentesis to determine the status of a fetus which might then be aborted if deemed defective;

2) a precise universally accepted definition of death, required for heart transplantation. Among other issues that will challenge halakha in the future, he cited the distribution of scarce medical resources and the allocation of limited funds for medical care. He also felt that professional ethics (e.g., medical confidentiality) which conflict with the public interest will have to receive more scrutiny than in the past.

BIO
Professor Emeritus Velvl Greene earned a PhD in bacteriology and biochemistry at the University of Minnesota, where he was professor of public health and microbiology for many years. In 1986 he and his family settled in Israel, where he directed the Sir Immanuel Jakobovits Center for Jewish Medical Ethics and also taught public health at the University of Ben-Gurion of the Negev in Beersheba.

Most of Professor Greene's career was devoted to teaching and researching environmental health and microbiology. One of the original bioscience researchers participating in the US Space Program, he has authored and coauthored dozens of scientific papers, educational films, monographs, and other scholarly contributions in such diverse areas as disinfection and sterilization, aerobiology, contamination control and hospital infection control.

Together with his wife and five children, he was active in the Minneapolis, Minnesota Jewish community and Habad Lubavitch. Since his retirement he has extensively lectured in North America on a broad variety of Jewish and scientific topics.

vgreene@netvision.net.il

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