Total Death Should Be Over Time

Legal death and physiological death are not the same thing. Legal death is when the brain ceases function due a variety of things. A physiological death is when there is machine of some sort being used to keep bodily functions working such as cardiac muscles which keeps the blood flowing. To me, there should be an absolute definition of death that covers all moral, ethical, physiological, and legal deaths. There must be some basic definition of it for medical professionals to follow because everyone has different ethical and moral beliefs, which must be considered. In order to avoid any patient having their rights violated in a situation where they can’t voice their moral and ethical beliefs there must be a baseline for pronouncing someone

viii. Brain Death must be established- person must cease having neurons firing in the neuro system

In "What is Death? The Crisis of Criteria" Louis Pojman introduced four definitions of death and describes their benefits and limitations. The four definitions include loss of the soul, cardiopulmonary failure, whole brain death and neocortical brain death, of which the cardiopulmonary is typically most common. I intend to show, using the work of Jonathan Glover and reasoning, that the neocortical brain death definition holds significant merit and is truly more practical and ethical.

Louis Pojman and Roland Puccetti took the position that neocortical brain death was the best definition of death. Many implications resulted from this, including views on assisted death and organ transplant. Would this lead to a slippery slope regarding what death was? Would this lead to an increase in organs available for donation? These are only some of the implications that arose from Pojman and Puccetti’s position. Looking at the neocortical brain death position versus the biologically integrative whole brain position allowed for judgement on which definition had better merit. I will argue that the biological whole brain position is more inconsistent in regards to application. As such, I will take the position of advocating for the

The thin line between life and death has become an ethical issue many health care providers and the government have long tried to ignore. The understanding that life begins at birth, and ends when the heartbeat and breathing have ceased has long been deemed factual. Medical technologies have changed this with respirators, artificial defibrillators, and transplants (Macionis, 2009). “Thus medical and legal experts in the United States define death as an irreversible state involving no response to stimulation, no movement or breathing, no reflexes, and no indication of brain activity” (Macionis, 2009, p. 436).

Criteria for declaring death using neurological criteria developed, and today a whole brain definition of death is widely used and recognized as an acceptable way to determine death. (Iltis)

Death is in a sense inevitable, we can’t escape from it. In today’s day in age, we are living longer than our parents and our grandparents due to medical technology. But there are so many ethical issues and complications that go hand and hand with death. There are two forms of death, cardiac and brain-oriented. Determining these two forms of death, along with the determined time of death is vital, simply because we don’t want to treat a living person as if they were dead. With so many issues concerning death, we have to protect those who are on the brink of death or terminally ill and can’t speak for themselves, but allowing them to make preparations for the future. Advanced directives makes this possible,

This concept is like that of the system that ranks the moral value of fetuses to see if abortion is justified but sort of in reverse. As more and more time goes on without any cognitive improvement, the legal system tends to view this as the patient losing moral value until eventually there is a point where the court steps in deciding that it is ethically acceptable to end a patient’s life. This action suggests that just like the fetus reaches full moral value at birth, there is an unclear time period that when patients pass deems them as not being a person anymore because there is just no chance of them possibly making any sort of recovery. This was the situation in the Terri Schiavo case, as many neurologists strongly believed that Terri had passed the point of being able to make a recovery and when the court system ultimately intervened to end her physical life, they made it clear that her unresponsiveness to stimuli over the years suggested that she was no longer a person (Pence

A position of simply defining death as the permanent loss of consciousness was a potential position, which was then refuted. How can one be completely sure of true loss of consciousness? Singer replies to this case by referencing Dr. Margaret de Campo, and the new technologies

Keith discusses life, death, and suffering all throughout the article to pull at reader’s heart strings. Everyone has watched a loved one suffer and live day to day wanting to die at some point in their life. He states in the article, “What all these cases have in common is the need to make decisions over “end-of-life care” treatments provided in the last stages of life, when recovery is known to be impossible” (Keith 1). This is put in the article to emphasize that important life or death decisions must be made at times.

Traditionally death was defined with the heart-lung criterion which referred to cardio-respiratory death. The lower brain is what controls respiration therefore the destruction of the brainstem causes loss of all cardio-respiratory vital signs and so death ensues. In 1981, a new definition arose which was labelled as Whole Brain Death. It is defined as an individual being declared dead, despite continuing functional vital signs. (Pojman, pp. 102) There is no consciousness, no control of brainstem reflexes, and a loss of cognitive functions. The individual’s survival is dependent on artificial mechanisms that are provided by doctors. This newer definition was created due to modern technology being able to revive someone who is cardio-respiratory

Before taking this class I was oblivious to the apparently well-known fact that there are two standards of death. One standard is the cardiopulmonary standard, which is when the heart and lungs cease to function on their own. The second standard is the total brain death standard which is when there is complete and irreversible loss of brain function. There are people who stand in both corners of this argument but most, if not all, stand for only one standard. While the definitions of each standard seems to be clear cut, it is not, as there are some cases in which one standard will not suffice, which we will be discussing in a later paragraph. I will argue that both the

Active euthanasia is a subject that is raising a lot of concern in today’s society on whether or not it should be legalized and under what circumstances should it be allowed. This is a very tricky subject due to its ability to be misused and abused. There are a wide variety of things that need to be considered when it comes to who should be allowed to request active euthanasia such as, is it an autonomous choice, do they have a terminal illness, is their quality of life dramatically decreased, and are they in pain and suffering. Both James Rachel and Daniel Callahan have very different opinions on active euthanasia and whether or not it should be allowed. However both authors manage to provide a substantial argument on where they stand regarding active euthanasia.

When writing the article about Gilgamesh, the author, philosophical A. Brown, described his perspective on the meaning of life through human behavior and trial and error, by describing and applying the Epic of Gilgamesh as an example. Brown reflects that humans attempt to control everything and strive to become an everlasting immortal even though “allotted to [man is] death, but life [the gods] retained in their own keeping” (Brown 4). Yet, why do people live and why do they die?

These questions are difficult for any of us to answer - even more so if we are dealing with a situation in which we may have to answer one or more of these questions. Yet, for some of us, these questions are all too real. If someone is considered to be in a vegetative state and the doctor determines that they are not