Danish ethics council rejects brain death as the criterion of death -- commentary 2: return to Elsinore

No discussion of when an individual is dead is meaningful in the absence of a definition of death. If human death is defined as the irreversible loss of the capacity for consciousness combined with the irreversible loss of the capacity to breathe spontaneously (and hence to maintain a spontaneous he...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Pallis, Christopher (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: 1990
In: Journal of medical ethics
Year: 1990, Volume: 16, Issue: 1, Pages: 10-13
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
Volltext (kostenfrei)
Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:No discussion of when an individual is dead is meaningful in the absence of a definition of death. If human death is defined as the irreversible loss of the capacity for consciousness combined with the irreversible loss of the capacity to breathe spontaneously (and hence to maintain a spontaneous heart beat) the death of the brainstem will be seen to be the necessary and sufficient condition for the death of the individual. Such a definition of death is not something radically new. It is merely the reformulation -- in the language of the neurophysiologist -- of much older concepts such as the 'departure of the (conscious) soul from the body' and the 'loss of the breath of life'. All death -- in this perspective -- is, and always has been, brainstem death....
ISSN:1473-4257
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of medical ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1136/jme.16.1.10