By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
Could a Jew be forced to donate blood to a dying person? The answer, which took the crowd at Congregation Ezra Bessaroth a bit aback, was yes. Rabbi Aaron E. Glatt, M.D., told attendees at his July 10 lecture that Jewish law, or halachah, permits it, and that a society ruled by Jewish law would require it.
However, he added, whether it’s blood, bone marrow, kidney, liver, blood, skin, or the eyes, the risk to the donor is always the first consideration, and the second is to weigh that risk with the life-saving benefit to the recipient.
“If someone will die without an operation,” said Glatt, “halachah demands [donation to be obligatory].
“‘Lo ta’amod al dom rai-eh-chah’ — don’t stand on the blood of your friend,” he added. “Halachah doesn’t require your consent if you have blood that will save someone’s life. However, it has to be an acceptable risk for the donor. You’ve got to weigh things.”
Glatt was the second lecturer to speak in the four-part medical symposium series, “A Matter of Life and Death,” currently underway at the Seward Park synagogue throughout the summer.
The rabbi and doctor is a full professor of clinical medicine at New York Medical College, president and CEO of New Island Hospital in Beth Page, N.Y., a law professor, international lecturer, author of hundreds of journal articles, and the congregational rabbi at Congregation Anshei Chesed, an Orthodox synagogue located in Hewlett, N.Y.
“God told us what to do about every human invention and technological advance,” he said.”It’s all written down someplace. It was all written down 2,000 years ago and now we understand what the purpose of it is.”
Although his topic included organ donation and transplantation, surrogate parenting, and artificial insemination, Glatt focused largely on organ donation and transplantation.
“The first kidney was transplanted from a human to a human in 1963,” said Glatt, “but the medical technology was not yet up to the point where it would be successful. That took until 1980. That’s when Cyclosporine, a major immunosuppressant that stops your immune system from fighting a foreign body, began to be used. Now, a person with a kidney transplant can live 10, 20, 30 years.”
The science also changed the halachah — a procedure that may have once been considered murder can now be allowed because of the increased survival rates.
Today, a patient who receives a heart transplant has an 80 to 90 percent chance of surviving for at least 10 years, he said. The donor is obviously dead, so there is no issue of risk to him or her.
Liver transplants are not as safe as kidney transplants, according to Glatt, but the operation is much more successful between an adult child and a parent and is sanctioned by halachah.
Today, in many cases, said Glatt, technology allows doctors to prevent undue suffering and risk, as in the case of performing a Caesarian section.
“In the past, it wasn’t allowed because even if a Caesarian child was able to survive, the mother didn’t survive and there was rarely the possibility of having a second child,” said Glatt. Today, when 25 to 30 percent of births are by Caesarian section, “the mother can go on to have another child — maybe another couple of children.”
Glatt told the crowd that a person is always allowed to receive a donated organ and an example of the first one can be found in the Torah’s creation story.
“If you consider Adam donating his rib to Chava, it’s an example of organ donation,” said the doctor. “He put Adam to sleep. God was the first anesthesiologist.”
The same standards apply to surrogate motherhood and artificial insemination, he said, although the texts are less direct in these cases and mainly allude to it through stories of lineage and births.
According to Glatt, the halachah allows surrogate parenting, a procedure where a fertilized embryo is transplanted into another woman’s womb — even the womb of a relative like a sister, daughter, mother or a grandmother, as has been done in medicine already.
Citing many Torah commentaries about the births of Joseph and Dinah and the apparent transference of the fetuses between Rachel and Leah, the story of these two sisters are considered by many rabbis to be the first example of a birth mother and surrogate mother relationship.
“The womb was switched or the embryo in the womb was switched, and therefore, you have Rachel giving birth to a boy. Therefore, the fertilized eggs can be implanted in a surrogate,” he said. “Halachah allows this.”
According to Glatt, artificial insemination should only be done under the strict guidance of an orthodox Rabbi, as there are many concerns including whether or not the donor is Jewish. The same applies to surrogate motherhood.