- Feb 5, 2002
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People of good will in and out of the medical community should support medical research seeking innovative, morally uncontentious ways to replace failing organs.
In 1968 an influential Harvard Medical School committee introduced brain death with the oxymoronic definition “irreversible coma as a new criterion for death,” disregarding the fact that to be in a coma is not to be dead but alive. Declaring a person dead by brain death criteria is the primary means by which organs are obtained for transplantation.
The validity of brain death criteria is disputed among those who uphold the belief in the inherent dignity of every human being. Some, including myself, are convinced that brain death does not represent the death of the human person.
Others think that if there is total, irreversible loss of all brain function, the human person is dead. I propose that, regardless of which position an individual holds, all of us should oppose the use of brain death criteria in clinical practice.
The validity of brain death can be assessed at two levels. The first is at the theoretical level: If the brain is destroyed — that is, has undergone “total pathologic necrosis” — is the human person, of necessity, dead? The second is at the practical level: Has the brain in fact undergone destruction in a person declared brain dead?
Continued below.
Brain Death: What Catholics Need to Know
In 1968 an influential Harvard Medical School committee introduced brain death with the oxymoronic definition “irreversible coma as a new criterion for death,” disregarding the fact that to be in a coma is not to be dead but alive. Declaring a person dead by brain death criteria is the primary means by which organs are obtained for transplantation.
The validity of brain death criteria is disputed among those who uphold the belief in the inherent dignity of every human being. Some, including myself, are convinced that brain death does not represent the death of the human person.
Others think that if there is total, irreversible loss of all brain function, the human person is dead. I propose that, regardless of which position an individual holds, all of us should oppose the use of brain death criteria in clinical practice.
The validity of brain death can be assessed at two levels. The first is at the theoretical level: If the brain is destroyed — that is, has undergone “total pathologic necrosis” — is the human person, of necessity, dead? The second is at the practical level: Has the brain in fact undergone destruction in a person declared brain dead?
Continued below.
Brain Death: What Catholics Need to Know