Alta Fixsler Response (to AMI Magazine)
Dear Ami Magazine
Thank you for your insightful article (Issue #540) about Pinny Kellner and his holy campaign to save the life of Alta Fixsler. The situation of this poor girl saddened me to no extent, as I also had a son in a similar situation. However, as I was living in Israel, the hospital staff was interested in keeping my son alive. At the age of 8 when he was not responding to certain treatments, the doctors in Shaarei Zedek did an MRI scan and discovered that my son didn’t have a brain – yet the doctors and nurses in Shaarei Zedek, Herzog and Hadassah hospitals still worked to keep him alive for another three years. When he turned 11, I spoke with the doctors at Herzog Hospital where he was residing, and they said that while they were doing their best, it was all “unchartered territory” because there were no medical case studies on such children. The doctor then answered my upcoming question, “Because no child in any other country would live this long – the hospitals would eventually withhold treatment and allow the child to die.”
What is most frightening is how the secular world convinces itself that terminating the life of the child would be in the child’s best interest. I once discussed this in a forum with a nurse. She explained that she was proud that she pulled the plug on several patients (all with orders from the doctors or the legal guardians) and that she felt assured she was going to Heaven because her actions stopped the suffering of the patients.
With whatever shortcomings the secular government of Israel has, I can honestly say that I never had to fight against the State to ensure that they didn’t “pull the plug” on my son. He lived 11 years – nearly all of them in the holy city of Jerusalem – and has a Yahrzeit on the 30th of Cheshvan.
Thank you.
