[Avodah] Brain Death

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 06:02:00PM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
> RMB:
>> All science can do is describe in great detail various medical states.
>> Halakhah tells us which of those states are in the set we call "chai", and
>> which are in the set we call "meis". The machloqes is in the definition of
>> the chalos sheim chai.

> Does this mean that a surgeon who removes a person's heart in order to
> transplant a new one is a murderer? Isn't the body in the intermediate
> state "dead"(RAM) or doesn't it have a "chalos sheim meis"(RMB)?

It doesn't mean anything in particular... I'm specifying what I believe
to be the terms of the question, not an answer.

> Introducing hazakah solves this problem neatly, since hazakos can
> change depending on circumstance...

It does. But. In order to have a chazaqah, one has to have a known state
that you're presuming holds. (Either because it used to, what the Sheiv
Shemaatsa calls as "chazaqah demei'iqarah", or because of a law of nature
/ human nature, "chazaqah desvara").

Are you saying we all agree as to what that known state is? If so,
what is it?

I was suggesting that R' Tendler's and the CR's position is based on
defining life in terms of the ability to have a self-caused heartbeat,
whereas the majority opinion is based on the ability to have a heatbeat,
regardless of what is making it beat.

RMT's argument for brain stem death is based on the brain stem being the
source of the signals that cause heartbeat. Not because of the role of
the brain in thought, consciousness, or it being "the seat of the soul".

However, he objects to the persistance of the majority opinion on the
grounds of:
    We underestimate the effort needed to understand the advances in
    biomedicine, people who are trained - doctors, etc. - have trouble
    keeping up with the field. Our rabbis enter the field at its most
    advanced stage, without the background necessary to understand it.

    The idea that greatness in Torah is adequate to make up with this
    deficit in education, is erroneous. Lo bashamaim hi - the Torah is
    down on the earth....

This is as though the issue were one of chazaqah, of knowing when the
norms of teva allow us to assume something (whatever that may be),
then RMT's objection would be correct.

However, how I understand things, no one is speaking of chazaqos. Rather,
they don't require the heartbeat on its own in order to be chai. Knowing
the mechanisms better doesn't change the point of dispute.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
micha at aishdas.org        suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
http://www.aishdas.org                 -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)
Fax: (270) 514-1507