Here’s another ethical issue and Jewish source response:

Case

During the Holocaust, Nazi doctors immersed subjects in near-freezing water to see how long the people lived.  They died. The experiment was repeated over and over. Hundreds of people were killed, the scientist was branded a murderer, but the work was meticulously detailed and was published.  Twenty-five years later, during the Vietnam war, U.S. pilots were shot down over the Indochina Sea. The Air Force needed to know how long to search for pilots and when to give up. To save money and save lives the search and rescue team commander unhesitantly reached for a book with data from the Nazi experiments.

Should this book be destroyed?  Can one use information gained by unjust means, even when of critical benefit?  Won’t this data encourage others to conduct similar gruesome experiments?

Answer

[a]  Cleopatra’s experimentation on the wombs of servants she murdered (Nidda 30b). A story is told that Cleopatra, the Queen of Alexandria, sentenced her handmaids to death by royal decree.  They were subjected to a test, and it was found that both male and female embryos were fully fashioned on the forty-first day.

Rashi (commentary): “They were impregnated and killed at various points in their pregnancies so that Cleopatra could understand the development inside the womb.”

[b]  Rabbi Ishmael’s students learning the number of bones in a human body from a woman put to death by the king (Bekhorot 45a).  Rabbi Judah quoted Samuel: “The disciples of Rabbi Ishmael once dissected the body of a prostitute who had been condemned to be burnt by the king.  They examined it and found two hundred and fifty-two joints and limbs.”

[c]  Rabbi Baruch Cohen investigated this question in the Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society, Spring 1990.  He concluded that complete censorship of this data would be foolish when human lives can be saved.  But, quoting Robert J. Lifton, he adds, “this data should only be used when it also fully exposes the evil things the Nazis did.”

[d]  Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, also concludes: “Using this data in no way gives meaning to the deaths that created it – and it would be wrong to suggest that they died for a purpose.” 

Joel Grishaver, “You Be the Judge”, pgs. 81-82

Used with permission from Joel Grishaver