Religion Magazine

Rabbis Are Not Doctors, but Doctors Are Supposed to Save Lives

By Gldmeier @gldmeier
Some big news recently was the High Court deciding in favor of the Meuhedet health clinic against a family whose baby was born paralyzed.
Meuhedet had refused to cover treatment of the baby, because they said a doctor had warned the parents early in the pregnancy that the baby would be born paralyzed, and recommended that they abort the pregnancy. The parents went to Rabbi Mordechai Eliiyahu who advised them to not abort. They followed the rabbis advice, the baby was born paralyzed as the doctor had said would happen, and Meuhedet refused to cover expenses.
The family sued, the family won. Meuhedet was obligated to pay. Meuhedet appealed to the High Court, and the High Court now ruled in favor of Meuhedet, overturning the original decision. The Court considers it unlikely that the doctor would not have explained to them the dangers and they need to be held responsible for rejecting the doctors advice.
source: INN
We don't know, from the articles, what the advice from Rabbi Eliyahu was based on. Was it a bracha? Was it advice? was it a psak halacha against abortion? Was it based on a kabbalistic vision? Was it psychological support for a troubled family in a difficult time? I'm not sure it matters, but we cannot comment on it because we don't know what it was.
I agree that Rabbis are not doctors. Rabbis can be approached for comfort and guidance, but they should not give medical advice, unless they have acquired expertise in any particular field (like they should not give financial advice unless they have expertise in those matters). This is not to say anything bad about Rabbi Eliyahu - we don't know what he said. Maybe he gave a bracha, maybe he gave a psak halacha, maybe he just offered comfort, or maybe he gave [bad] advice. We don't know, so we cannot comment on it.
On the other hand, I can say I am surprised that parents are obligated to follow a doctors advice to terminate a pregnancy. I never heard such a thing before. I do wonder if they went to another doctor for a second opinion. Regardless, I am surprised to hear that they were obligated to terminate a pregnancy like this. Advice to terminate can be understood, perhaps, especially if there was some sort of danger to the mother's life (which it does not say was the case), but to turn that to an obligation to terminate?
I fear where this might take us. Will parents now feel more pressure to terminate high risk pregnancies out of fear of how they might later be obligated based on the outcome?
Rabbis are not doctors, but doctors are supposed to work to save lives, not end them.
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