Q&A: Autopsy in Halacha - Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

let me just mention generally the H backgrounds uh as a general rule autopsies are absolutely a and there's a number of reasons why it'ser number one it'ser because it is called n is disfiguring of a corpse you're cutting into a dead body removing bar burial parts that is called bizon degradation of a dead body that is called nil disfigurement of a dead body uh so that's one reason that it's AER and this is a Lo because the T says even when somebody is executed for a sin and you hang up his body for a little bit so people can see it you have to take it down right away because that's called a of that which is in theim and are actually cutting up so that's one problem the other problem is there is a of Thea of kava of burial every part of a body that you're able to bury you're M to bury so the parts of autopsies are typically not returned to the body so there are two different problems at least there is nil H and there is Thea of of kabura so as a result an autopsy is an awful thing in addition it is brought down in cabala that the Nish itself suffers tremendously when the body is not brought to a proper K this is also an issue with cremation similar type OFA there's AAR to the Nish Mish that's why I tell people all the time they tell me what do I do my mother made me swear on her deathbed that I would get her cremated how can I violate my mother's last request and I say always feel free to violate your mother's last request she will be very grateful for you in ganeden you're not hurting your mom you're actually giving your mom a lot of happiness in what you do now here is the thing though there is a famous classic Chua of theud rando the great RAV of Prague of the 1700s where he writes yeah there's a very big AA called n ham and the like but it's not one of the big three it's not aora Gil so is permitted in order to save somebody's life that's in Jeopardy right so theoretically autopsies are permitted uh if they have a potential life saving benefit but here's the he says something qualifies ases only if there is an existing person a theu in front of us meaning in our well in his day it meant in the geographical location today could be worldwide but there has to be a who might benefit meaning he is mik between an autopsy that can directly help a person in a life-threatening condition versus an autopsy that is part of longterm medical research that maybe together with a million other autopsies might save somebody in 20 years uh it is very very rare that an autopsy I'll give you an example but that can actually be used to save a person now this might be a hetcher for organ donation maybe we'll talk about that another time meaning organization meaning the heart will go to somebody okay but stamp autopsies which just yield gen General Medical information generally do not qualify for and the points out because if you're going to say anything that in the long term could save a life is called then you might as well get rid of the whole Torah I mean imagine a medical student uh you're from guy in medical school so you say well gee I got to drive to this lecture on chabas because maybe I'll hear something about preventing a heart attack that may help me five years from now right or I got to eat uh this ham sandwich because if I if I if I'm too tired to hear the lecture I'm not going to be able to save a life right there has to be an immediate situation here that's called so as a result General Medical autopsies are absolutely not permitted even if there's a potential which is usually slight anyway that will yield some life-saving information for the future now one interesting example where uh autopsies might be permitted although we would discourage it is what is called a forensic autopsy let's assume for example that somebody died of a foul play Poison murder and through the autopsy we would be able to get evidence that may help to apprehend the murderer so the postum say since people who murder are likely to murder again although you can actually question that but that that's the Assumption they're like radim so therefore getting information that can get this guy off the street is called so those types of autopsies would be permitted because they could yield concrete even though you don't know for sure obviously you don't know for sure but it could yield concrete evidence that could get a dangerous person out of commission so that would fall under the category of p and even then even when the autopsy is permitted there is an inion to try to retrieve whatever body parts you can and then put them in the Kev along with the the rest of the person's person's body um so the general position of halaka is that we are very very very much against autopsies more or less for the same reason we're against cremations uh because it's a bizan Ms now one other thing it is important to understand something about bizay and Hames you know the Egyptians had a whole culture that almost worship death now people sometimes say oh you know don't speak evil about the death meaning when the guy's alive I could say whatever I want to say about him when he's dead it's sacran Judaism proceeds on the opposite premise you have to understand something the reason why we have so many laws about covod for dead bodies is not because a dead body is more worthy of covero than a live person it's the other way around since the dead body is like the mantle of a safer Torah since it once housed the Divine Soul we must show it cover so how much C you must have for a live person it's not that you honor the dead more than the living it's the covet of the Dead is because it once was living and therefore you have to learn from K theion of K CL so it's absolutely the opposite of the death worship of the Egyptian culture