My Homeland Calls Me

In this long and fairly snooze-inducing article on the "Jewish perspective" on what to do with/about Terri Schiavo, who pops up to bequeath his widsom unto the masses but "Rabbi David Feldman, who had an Orthodox ordination and defines himself as 'traditional,' is rabbi emeritus of the Conservadox Jewish Center of Teaneck, N.J."

[For those not in the know, Teaneck, my home town, is a land of a thousand synagogues. And I might have visited all of them at some point during the year when my peers and I were having our bar mitzvahs (all of my friends when I was younger were either Jewish or black)--ed.]

So, what does Rabbi Feldman think on't?

"There's a dispute here between a husband and parents, but none of that makes any difference as far as halachah is concerned," said Feldman, the author of "Birth Control and Abortion in Jewish Law" and the dean of the Jewish Institute of Bioethics. "You can't hasten death yourself, with your own hands. If death comes, you can thank G- d because it's a relief, but you can't decide yourself that it has to be done."

The only time it would be acceptable to remove a medical device, Feldman said, would be if "something worse would happen-if leaving it in would cause infection, or more pain.

"You can kill someone pursuing you, you can kill the soldier in the enemy army, maybe very cautiously you can kill if there is a death penalty, but you can't kill an innocent person because of illness," he said.

Okay, so there you have it. Now who wants to suggest an over/under on the percentage of American Jews on the side of mercy in this case? I would say 85.