Q&A: The Value of Life
The Value of Life
Question
My father was deliberating about a durable power of attorney. He did not want to be in a מצב where he was no longer aware of what was going on and was being fed artificially (with a feeding tube or PEG). The first rabbi he asked told him that there is no halakhic permission for this according to the positions of Haredi halakhic decisors. Afterward he asked another rabbi, and he allowed him a wording like that — seeing this as an artificial prolongation of life. What is your view? And what about a person who simply does not want to be fed artificially or dependent on others, and because of that does not want to undergo a life-saving surgery?
Answer
What do you mean, what is my view? It does not depend on you but on him. Are you asking whether it is permitted for him? In principle, a person must save himself and others, but if great suffering is involved, there is permission not to take life-saving measures.
Discussion on Answer
It definitely carries weight. If he is already truly no longer of sound mind, I think there is room for that.
Emanuel, see a detailed summary of the views of the halakhic decisors on this issue on Yeshiva Wiki.
https://www.yeshiva.org.il/wiki/index.php?title=%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%AA%D7%AA_%D7%97%D7%A1%D7%93&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop#cite_note-45
(An example from there: mercy killing by a non-Jew is permitted, on condition that the patient himself requests it because of the severity of his suffering — Rabbi S.B. Werner, Torah SheBe’al Peh, 18, 1976, pp. 38 and onward.)
The question is whether mental suffering and humiliation count as “suffering.”
Emanuel, see a detailed summary of the views of the halakhic decisors on this issue on Yeshiva Wiki.
https://www.yeshiva.org.il/wiki/index.php?title=%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%AA%D7%AA_%D7%97%D7%A1%D7%93&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop#cite_note-45
(An example from there: mercy killing by a non-Jew is permitted, on condition that the patient himself requests it because of the severity of his suffering — Rabbi S.B. Werner, Torah SheBe’al Peh, 18, 1976, pp. 38 and onward.)
The question is whether mental suffering and humiliation count as “suffering.”
If mercy killing is permitted, there is no difference between killing by a Jew and killing by a non-Jew. Such a claim was raised by one of the later authorities, and in Igrot Moshe and Achiezer they rejected it out of hand.
I am not sure that a person who is no longer mentally present (unconscious or with severe Alzheimer’s) suffers, but clearly this is not a state one wants to be in (the surroundings suffer and his dignity is harmed). The question is whether this wish, expressed while he is healthy, should be given weight, and in the end there may be room for discretion as to whether and how to carry out the instructions.