Fertility vs. saving lives

[RabbiM]

Rabbi Akiva Tatz MD, founder and director of the Jerusalem Medical
Ethics Forum, told the following story and halachic ruling at his
presentation on Jewish Medical Ethics this past Monday (September 22nd
08) at Hackensack University Medical Center.
A European Jewish couple who had attempted to conceive for years
without success, finally came to Israel for further attempts at high
tech medical procedures to conceive. The attempts were successful and
they had a healthy baby. In appreciation they told the hospital's
medical director they would give a large donation to enable other
couples to have fertility treatment even if they could not afford to
pay. The director of the hospital said that he could not dedicate the
entire sum to fertility treatments when there are dire needs for
people who will not live without treatment. As he put it to the
religious would-be donor: "Pikuach nefesh requires me to allocate it
to life saving equipment and medication."
The donor protested that he wished to give it specifically for
fertility treatments to express his gratitude for his own good
fortune.
The dispute was brought to Hagaon HaRav Elyashiv shlit"a who ruled in
favor of the donor. His reasoning was that a society needs to be able
to allocate money for desirable causes even when there are life saving
purposes which would seem more urgent. Society needs this because
otherwise there would be no parks and playgrounds in a country with
endless military needs. Therefore a donor has to be able to use
discretion in selecting a desirable but non-life-sustaining medical
purpose for his funding, and the hospital should accept the funds with
the restriction upheld.
Rabbi Avrohom Marmorstein
meha...@aol.com