Jewish Ethics and the Care of End-of-Life Patients: A Collection of Rabbinical, Bioethical, Philosophical, and Juristic Opinions

Ethical dilemmas multiply as medical advances intensify the complexity of decision making at the end of life. A basic issue often arises from the conflict between two highly esteemed values: reverence for life and patients' right to self-determination. This collection of essays tries to address the Jewish approach to such problems. Steinberg, an Israeli physician and ethicist, chaired a 59-member committee that worked from 2000 to 2002 to produce a law regulating the care of dying patients in Israel. The law was enacted in 2005. Steinberg's description of the committee's work, its report and the actual law are the most useful parts of the book. His contributions detail an approach that carefully tried to codify into law a significant version of the Jewish view of death and dying. Lack of consensus on the subject from biblical and Talmudic times to the present made the task difficult. Disagreement is amply documented in the book's other essays that offer different Jewish perspectives on such knotty subjects as assisted suicide, euthanasia, death on demand and the withholding or withdrawal of treatment. Despite the unevenness of the presentations, the anthology sheds useful light on a subject that is of universal concern. (July 15)