The Question of Transplants of Organs From a Pig Proves Too Much for the New York Times

Recently the New York Times ran the following headline: “Pig Organ Transplants May Pose a Dilemma for Some Jews and Muslims.” Anyone reading this headline would assume that some members of both these groups are so zealous in their beliefs that they would be prepared to die — and make loved ones die — rather than accept a life saving transplant of a pig organ.The problem with the headline is that the reporter herself, Roni Caryn Rabin, fails to find a single Jew who believes that their religion poses a “dilemma” for potential recipients of life saving pig organs. Indeed she herself reports that “for Jews, the short answer [to the question whether it is religiously acceptable for a Jew to receive a pig organ] is a clear and unequivocal yes. It is one of the exceedingly rare instances in which the maxim ‘two Jews three opinions’ does not apply.”Ms. Rabin then quotes a rabbi saying, “It’s 100 percent permitted even for the most orthodox of Jews.” Nor must the transplant be required to actually save life. It is enough that it promotes health and is medically advisable.The Jewish religious prohibition on eating pork simply does not apply to any organ transplants. I know because my mother, an orthodox Jew, received a pig valve 25 years ago with the blessing of her rabbi. Yes, we joked about it, but it was never a religious issue. There is simply no dilemma for Jews.Yet after learning that pig organ transplants do not pose a dilemma for any Jews, the Times persisted in running the totally false and somewhat defamatory headline suggesting the opposite. Why?It seems obvious to me what happened. The editors and/or the author decided to disrespect religious Jews by publishing an article saying that some Jews may refuse to accept pig organ transplants. The implication is that these Jews must be zealots who do not value life or health. They prefer adhering to the taboo against eating pork rather than accepting life saving or health promoting transplants.I imagine that the Times searched for a single rabbi, indeed a single Jew, who would say they must refuse such a transplant. When they couldn’t find anyone — not one single overzealous Jew of any denomination — they had two options: the first was to change the article to suggest that only some Muslims, but not any Jews, might have a problem.Indeed they report that for Muslims “the bar for overcoming the pig taboo is higher” than for Jews, because the Quran has been interpreted to declare that “the animal itself is filthy or corrupt, so it is not permissible to use it for any purpose.” Sharia law makes an exception only when the need is dire, life itself is at stake, and there is no alternative. For example, Jews may opt for a pig transplant to avoid the inconveniences of dialysis. Muslims may not unless there is no life saving alternative.So the Times could have limited the dilemma to Muslims and totally eliminated any reference to Jews, who have no such dilemma. Or they could have contrasted the more permissive Jewish approach to the less permissive Muslim approach. The second option was to cancel the story completely, after learning that the reporting did not support the headline. That’s what any decent editor would do. Apparently, though, the Times would not want to give up on the opportunity to dis religious Jews, regardless of the inconsistency that they themselves reported.So they chose not to cancel the story and to keep a headline that is not only demonstrably false and insulting but that is contradicted by its own reporting. The vast majority of New York Times readers would focus on the headline itself and probably not reach the contradictory reporting.The end result is that a lot of its readers now believe that some Jews would prefer to die or suffer serious health consequences rather than to accept a pig organ. The fact that this is false and insulting is irrelevant to the newspaper “of record.” What’s next: a Times headline proclaiming that “some Jews have a dilemma playing football with a pigskin?”

The Question of Transplants of Organs From a Pig Proves Too Much for the New York Times

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