[Avodah] Kashrus and genetic manipulation.

[hankman]

R' Chaim Manaster raised a hypothetical:
> What if we have a case of psik reisha that is breathing and
> whose heart is beating -- would all agree that this person is
> indeed dead?
...

RAM wrote:
> Short answer: As I understand it, Rav Moshe Feinstein would hold that
> person to be dead.

> Long answer: Your case seems (to me) to be similar to the case mentioned
> in Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2, Siman 174, bottom right paragraph on
> page 288:
...
> It seems like a simple kal vachomer to me: Suppose we had the technology
> to reattach the head of the person in RCM's case and bring him back
> to life. Rav Moshe says that even in such a case, the person was dead
> from the decapitation until the reattachment. If so, he is certainly
> dead in the case where they aren't even planning to reattach the head.

The case you report from Igros Moshe says that when the head is off you
do not have to revive him (even if you could) as he is now dead, but it
says nothing about the case where you did proceed to reattach the head and
revived him (techias hameisim) whether you now would be permitted to kill
him with impunity (I think not). Thus, the survival of the body on the
(special) heart-lung machine might still be considered a techias hameisim
of the body from which it might still be assur to harvest organs from,
if that "kills" him now as it would in harvesting the heart and lungs etc.



Here is an excerpt from an article written by Dr. Fred Rosner:

    Ethical and halakhic (Jewish legal) problems associated with genetic
    engineering include speciation. Does a certain species lose its
    identity if other genes are introduced into it? Would the citron
    or etrog (Citrus medica Linn) used on the holiday of Sukkot for
    religious purposes lose its identity if lemon genes were introduced
    into it? How many transplanted lemon genes are needed to consider
    the etrog to be a lemon? Can the rabbinic concept of nullification
    (bitul) be applied to this situation?

    Another example is the need for fins and scales for fish to be kosher
    for consumption. If genes introduced in a scaleless catfish induce
    scalation, does the catfish then become a kosher fish?

I think he is touching on the same issue that troubled me in my previous
posts about the limits of specie change induced thru genetic manipulation.

Also while googling I have found references that the OU and (I think)
OK have gone on record that GM is not a kashrus problem from R. Belsky
and R. H. Schacter. The logic (it was little more than one sentence --
so I am not really clear on what was actually said) was that it was a copy
of the gene from a kosher source (yeast) and thus not an introduction of
"treif" material. I have trouble understanding this logic as it really
begs the real and more difficult issues here. In my mind it was never
the question of mixing a small amount of treif material to the kosher
material, but of following the blueprint to build treif material.

Kol Tuv
Chaim Manaster