Jewish Perspectives on Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Extract

Editor's Note: On September 19, 1998 Professor Emeritus at Hebrew University, Ze'ev Falk died during the preparation of this manuscript. His place as a major contemporary scholar in the field of law and religion led the editors to publish here that portion of the manuscript Professor Falk had completed, plus references he intended to explore in later sections of the manuscript.

At present, the question arises, with respect to terminal patients, whether certain life can be considered worthwhile and reconcilable with human dignity. As a result of Kantian philosophy, modern people tend to assume that human beings are able, and should aspire, to make judgments regarding their life and bodies as well as their souls. In this view, a patient should be given full information about his or her situation and about the alternatives. Using this information, he or she should have the capacity to decide by him/herself what course of action is to be taken. In the modern view, even a patient in a coma should be treated according to the expression of his or her will, for example as formulated in a “Living Will.”

Biblical and rabbinical thought seem to have reflected an understanding for suicide. However, suicide belies a key issue unique to Judaism: why, in the course of Jewish suffering and Judaism's struggle to survive, suicide became unacceptable.