New York boy on life support in Washington, DC, dies

Washington Post, November 17, 2008

The legal battle over whether to keep a 12-year-old New York boy on life support at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC, ended after the boy's heart stopped beating, an attorney for the boy's family said. Doctors had declared the boy legally dead Nov. 4 after his brain activity had ceased. But his parents, who are Orthodox Jews, said their faith does not define death on that basis and had sought an order from D.C. Superior Court to keep him on life-sustaining equipment. The hospital received nearly 200 e-mails and phone calls on the case urging the hospital not to give up on the boy.