10 October 2005 (Monday)
one big buh
Tomorrow's New York Times Science section has a column wherein a heart surgeon meditates on his Orthodox Jewish patient's acceptance of a pig heart valve over an artificial valve. This is kind of beating the pikuach nefesh issue (put simply: you can violate any commandment - except murder, idolatry, and adultery - to save a life) over the head, isn't it? And it doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy, since the essay seems to imply that the typical Orthodox standard here would be to go with the inferior artificial valve. Maybe I'm just being overy sensitive...
[I seem to have accidentally deleted Joel C.'s comment. If you're reading - please repost!]
That was my point exactly, Joel - and I think that printing the essay as written serves only to perpetuate that misconception.
Having read the article this morning, it seemed to me that the doctor was more interested in equating his "secular rituals" of the operation with the religious rituals of his patient. As it is, the article clearly shows how ignorant the doctor is of his own religious background.
I didn't see the same implication that you did, but maybe I'm not being sensitive enough...
This was probably brought about by an episode of "Grey's Anatomy" wherein a Jewish woman (baalas Teshuva) refused a pig-valved heart. Of course there was so much wrong about Judaism in the episode even the writer complained that what was filmed bore little or no resemblance to what she had written.
