An alternative to brain death

Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics

Volumn 34, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 44-48

  McMahan, Jeff ^a  

^a Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BIOETHICS; BRAIN DEATH; CONFERENCE PAPER; HUMAN; PATHOPHYSIOLOGY; PERSONHOOD; PHILOSOPHY;

BIOETHICS; BRAIN DEATH; HUMANS; PERSONHOOD; PHILOSOPHY;

EID: 33645139442     PISSN: 10731105     EISSN: 1748720X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-720X.2006.00007.x     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (12)

1. J. L. Bernat, "A Defense of the Whole-Brain Concept of Death," Hastings Center Report 28, no. 2 (1998): 14-23, at 17.
2. See J. L. Bernat, "Defending Challenges to the Concept of 'Brain Death,'" at 〈http://www.lahey.org/NewsPubs/Publications/Ethics/ JournalFall1998/Journal_Fall1998_Feature.asp〉 (last visited December 5, 2005);
3. and M. A. DeVita and R. M. Arnold, "The Concept of Brain Death," at 〈http://www.lahey.org/NewsPubs/Publications/Ethics/ JournalWinter1999/Journal_Winter1999_Dialogue.asp〉 (last visited December 5, 2005).
4. For an early suggestion of this sort, see M. B. Green and D. Wilder, "Brain Death and Personal Identity," Philosophy and Public Affairs 9 (1980): 105-33, at 113.
5. Bernat, supra note 1, at 19.
6. Bernat also claims that "consciousness, which is required for the organism to respond to requirements for hydration, nutrition, and protection, among other needs," is therefore among the "critical functions of the organism as a whole," Ibid., at 17. But this still does not make it a somatic regulatory function of the brain.
7. See, for example, A. Shewmon, "Recovery from 'Brain Death': A Neurologist's Apologia," Linacre Quarterly 64 (1997): 30-96;
8. A. Shewmon, "Chronic 'Brain Death,'" Neurology 51 (1998): 1538-45;
9. and A. Shewmon, "The Disintegration of Somatic Integrative Unity: Demise of the Orthodox but Physiologically Untenable Physiological Rationale for 'Brain Death,'" manuscript on file with the author.
10. Bernat, supra note 2.
11. See J. McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (New York: Oxford University Press: 2002): chapter 5, section 1.2.
12. For further argument, see McMahan, supra note 8, at 7-24.