WASHINGTON - There is a heartbreaking legal battle ensuing over the fate of a young brain cancer patient at a local hospital.

It's a sad crossroads of medical science and religious faith. Doctors at Children's hospital declared a 12-year-old boy dead Tuesday night, but his parents say that's impossible, because of their religion they say the boy is alive because his heart is still beating. 

The case of 12-year-old Motl Brody, of Brooklyn, New York,  who is on life support at Children's National Medical Center in the District, is casting a spotlight on the debate over the definition of life and death.

A home video of Brody shows the young boy in happier times, but doctor's at the D.C. Hospital say Brody is legally dead. The 12-year-old has been unconscious for the past five months because of a terminal brain tumor. His family brought him to D.C. From his home in New York for treatment. The boy, though, shows no brain activity and doctors want to take him off of life support, pronouncing him legally dead on Tuesday. 

The Children's National Medical Center is seeking a court order that would allow the hospital to disconnect the 12-year-old boy from a ventilator and end the medications that keep his heart beating.

However, the boy's parents are Orthodox Jews, and their attorney says the concept of brain death is not recognized by Jewish law. Attorney Jeffrey Zuckerman says the family's beliefs should be respected. "I find no precedent for this where a hospital is asking a court to order it to stop treating a patient," said Zuckerman. "There's a federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which say D.C. Law can't interfere with the religious practice, religious exercise of a person unless there is some overwhelming governmental interest."

"It is clearly the belief of the orthodox Jewish religion that death occurs once the heart stops beating," said Rabbi Yitzchak Halberstam, the boy's uncle. A terminal brain tumor left Brody unconscious for five months, Halberstam said.

In documents filed at D.C. Superior Court, the hospital says its "scarce resources are being used for the preservation of a deceased body." D.C. Law states that if a patient is showing no brain activity, a hospital can stop treatment.

As a result, Brody's parents have hired lawyers and are now waging a legal battle to force the local hospital to continue treatment, but D.C. law may prove to be on the side of the hospital. The law states that if a patient if showing no brain activity, a hospital can stop treatment. Court documents reveal that the hospital has extended sympathy to the family, but said, "scarce resources are being used for the preservation of a dead body." 

"This could have been anybody's child. This child is alive; had he stayed in a New York hospital where he is from this issue would be irrelevant because New York law fully protects the rights of the parents," added Rabbi Halberstam.

Now it is a up to a D.C. Superior Court judge to decide whether or not the family's religions beliefs trumps D.C. Law. The case will go before a judge on Monday.