The two houses of the New Jersey Legislature have each given unanimous approval to a new measure which would bar medical examiners from performing autopsies over protests of observant Jewish families of the deceased person. Governor Thomas Kean is expected to sign the bill shortly, an official of the New Jersey chapter of Agudath Israel said.
Rabbi Yakov Dombroff, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Agudath Israel Commission on Legislative and Civic Action, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, in a telephone report from Elizabeth, where his office is located, that while the Governor had not set a date on signing the measure, the 66-0 Assembly vote and the 35-0 Senate vote indicated that the Governor would sign the bill when it reaches his desk.
Dombroff said the bill is basically similar to the law in New York State, which was drafted by the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs (COLPA) and for which Assemblyman Sheldon Silver (D. Manhattan) was a key sponsor.
Under terms of the measure approved by the New Jersey Legislature on January 9, a medical examiner must notify the family of plans for an autopsy and if the family objects on religious grounds, the examiner cannot perform the autopsy and must return the body to the family.
The medical examiner can perform an autopsy, despite such family objections, if the death involves a matter “of interest to the state,” which refers to the possibility of homicide or a threat to the public health.
Dombroff said Robert Good, the New Jersey chief state medical examiner, had worked closely with the Agudath Israel office on the bill.
Dombroff also reported that the New Jersey Assembly failed to vote on a definition of death bill after it was returned to the Legislature by Kean with an amendment recognizing a religious objection to the generally used definition of death — cessation of brain stem activity.
The rabbi said the Governor acted after the Orthodox agency had indicated to him the importance of an “exemption amendment” which would recognize the Orthodox Jewish position, which holds that death occurs with both cessation of brain activity and of cardiovascular activity.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
