Accommodating religious and moral objections to neurological death

Journal of Clinical Ethics

Volumn 20, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 183-191

  Olick, Robert S ^a   Braun, Eli A ^a   Potash, Joel ^a  

^a State University of New York Upstate Medical University: College of Medicine   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ATTITUDE TO DEATH; BRAIN DEATH; DECISION MAKING; ETHICS; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; MORALITY; RELIGION; SPOUSE; SUBARACHNOID HEMORRHAGE; SUBDURAL HEMATOMA; TIME; TRANSPLANTATION; UNITED STATES;

ATTITUDE TO DEATH; BRAIN DEATH; DECISION MAKING; ETHICS CONSULTATION; HEMATOMA, SUBDURAL; HUMANS; MORAL OBLIGATIONS; NEW YORK; RELIGION AND MEDICINE; SPOUSES; SUBARACHNOID HEMORRHAGE; TIME FACTORS; TISSUE AND ORGAN HARVESTING; UNITED STATES;

EID: 67650733892     PISSN: 10467890     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. J.L. Bernat, "The Whole-Brain Concept of Death Remains Optimum Public Policy," Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 34, no.1 (Spring 2006): 35-43;
2. A.M. Capron, "Brain Death - Well Settled Yet Still Unresolved," New England Journal of Medicine 344, no.16 (19 April 2001): 1244-1246;
3. R.D. Truog, "Is It Time to Abandon Brain Death?" Hastings Center Report 27, no.1 (January-February 1997): 29-37;
4. R.M. Veatch, "The Impending Collapse of the Whole Brain Definition of Death," Hastings Center Report 23, no.4 (July-August 1993): 18-24.
5. "Symposium: Defining the Beginning and the End of Human Life: Implications for Ethics, Policy, and Law," Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 34, no.1 (Spring 2006);
6. "Special Issue: Death and Organ Procurement: Public Beliefs and Attitudes," Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14, no. 3 (September 2004).
7. The President's Council on Bioethics, Controversies in the Determination of Death, January 2009, http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/death/index.html, accessed 1 May 2009;
8. see also, D.M. Gianelli and F.D. Davis, "News from the President's Council on Bioethics," Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 17, no.4 (December 2007): 397-398
9. The Determination of Death, 2nd ed. (New York: New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, 1986);
10. The New Jersey Advance Directives for Health Care and Declaration of Death Acts: Statutes, Commentaries and Analyses (Princeton, N.J.: New Jersey Commission on Legal and Ethical Prob-lems in the Delivery of Health Care, 1991).
11. -10 N.Y.C.R.R. § 400.16(e)(3) (2008).
12. People v. Eulo, 63 N.Y.2d 341, 482 N.Y.S.2d 436, 472 N.E.2d 286 (1984).
13. The Determination of Death, see note 4 above, pp. i, 12.
14. New York State Department of Health, "Guidelines for Determining Brain Death," December 2005, p. 1, http://www.health.state.ny.us/ professionals/doctors/guidelines/determination-of-brain-death/ docs/determination-of-brain-death.pdf accessed 24 March 2008.
15. Ibid., 2-3.
16. C.M. Gallagher and E.F.M. Wijdicks, "Religious and Cultural Aspects of Brain Death," in Brain Death, ed. E.F.M. Wijdicks (Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkens, 2001), 135-150
17. Regarding Roman Catholics, see J.M. Dubois, "Brain Death and Organ Donation," America: The National Catholic Weekly, 2 February 2009.
18. Regarding Islamic views, see M. Al-Mousawi et al., "Views of Muslim Scholars on Organ Donation and Brain Death," Transplantation Proceedings 29, no.8 (December 1997): 3217;
19. F.A. Khan, "Religious Teachings and Reflections on Advance Directive - Religious Values and Legal Dilemmas in Bioethics: An Islamic Perspective," Fordham Urban Law Journal 30 (November 2002): 267-275.
20. Regarding Native American views, see The President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Defining Death : Medical, Legal, and Ethical Issues in the Definition of Death (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1981), 41.
21. See also H.T. Engelhardt, Jr., "Redefining Death: The Mirage of Consensus," in The Definition of Death: Contemporary Controversies, ed. S.J. Youngner and R.M. Arnold (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 319-31;
22. CS. Campbell, "Fundamentals of Life and Death: Christian Fundamentalism and Medical Science," ibid., 194-209.
23. Z.H. Rappaport and I.T. Rappaport, "Principles and Concepts of Brain Death and Organ Donation: The Jewish Perspective," Child's Nervous System 14, no.8 (August 1998): 381-383 (Pubitemid 28405055)
24. J.D. Bleich, "Establishing Criteria of Death," in Jewish Bioethics, ed. F. Rosner and J.D. Bleich (New York: Sanhedrin Press, 1979), 277-295
25. D. Zwiebel, "Accommodating Religious Objections to Brain Death: Legal Considerations," Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society 17, no.1 (Spring 1989): 49-68.
26. F. Rosner and M. Tendler, "Definition of Death in Judaism," Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society 17, no.1 (Spring 1989): 14-31.
27. Y. Jakobovitz, "Heart Transplants: The Chief Rabbinate's Directives," Tradition 24, no.4 (Summer 1989): 1-14.
28. W. Jacob, American Reform Responsa (New York: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1983);
29. E.N. Dorff, "A Jewish Approach to End-Stage Medical Care," Conservative Judaism 43, no.3 (Spring 1991): 3-51;
30. A.I. Reiser, "A Halakhic Ethic of Care for the Terminally Ill," Conservative Judaism 43, no.3 (Spring 1991): 52-89;
31. E.N. Dorff, Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1988), 228-229, 381-383;
32. A. Steinberg, Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics (Jerusalem: Feldheim Publishers, 2003), 695-711.
33. M. Lock, Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2002).
34. M. Morioka, "Reconsidering Brain Death: A Lesson from Japan's Fifteen Years of Experience," Hastings Center Report 31, no.4 (July-August 2001): 41-46
35. W. LaFleur, "The Afterlife of the Corpse: How Popular Concerns Impact upon Bioethical Debates in Japan," in Practicing the Afterlife: Perspectives from Japan, ed. S. Formanek and W. LaFleur (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2004), 485-504, p. 486.
36. R. Kimura, "Japan's Dilemma with the Definition of Death," Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 1, no.2 (1991): 123-131
37. E. Ohnuki-Tierney, "Brain Death and Organ Transplantation: Cultural Bases of Medical Technology," Current Anthropology 35, no.3 (June 1994): 233-254
38. Ibid. For further discussion of the role of Buddhist and Shinto thought,
39. see T. Mizuno and B.T Slingsby, "Eye on religion: considering the influence of Buddhist and Shinto thought on contemporary bioethics," Southern Medical Journal 100, no.1 (January 2007): 115-117;
40. H. Hardacre, "Response of Buddhism and Shinto to the issue of brain death and organ transplant," Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 3, no.4 (Fall, 1994): 585-601.
41. L.A. Siminoff, C Burant, and S.J. Youngner, "Death and Organ Procurement: Public Beliefs and Attitudes," Social Science and Medicine 59, no.11 (December 2004): 2325-2334
42. S.J. Youngner et al., " 'Brain Death' and Organ Retrieval: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Knowledge and Concepts among Health Professionals," Journal of the American Medical Association 261, no.15 (21 April 1989): 2205-2210
43. M.A. DeVita and A.L. Caplan, "Caring for Organs or for Patients? Ethical Concerns about the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act," Annals of Internal Medicine 147, no.12 (18 December 2007): 876-879
44. C.D. Blinderman, "Jewish Law and End-ofLife Decision Making: A Case Report," The Journal of Clinical Ethics 18, no.4 (Winter 2007): 384-390
45. Court battles can ensue. See, for example, "Brain-dead Florida Girl Will Be Sent Home on Life Support," New York Times, 19 February 1994;
46. "Hospital Fights Parents' Wish to Keep Life Support for a 'Brain Dead' Child," New York Times, 12 February 1994;
47. C. Hamilton, "Lawyer: Deal Struck for the Care of Boy Declared Brain-dead," Salt Lake Tribune, 27 October 2004.
48. Youngner et al., " 'Brain Death' and Organ Retrieval," see note 25 above;
49. J. Spike and J. Greenlaw, "Ethics Consultation: Persistent Brain Death and Religion: Must a Person Believe in Death to Die?" Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 23, no.3 (Fall 1995): 291-294
50. R.D. Truog, "Brain Death - Too Flawed to Endure, Too Ingrained to Abandon," American Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 35, no.2 (Summer 2007): 273-281
51. The Determination of Death, see note 4 above, p. 15.
52. N.J.S.A. 26:6A-7 (2007).
53. R.S. Olick, "Brain Death, Religious Freedom, and Public Policy: New Jersey's Landmark Legislative Initiative," Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 1, no.4 (December 1991): 275-292.
54. The New Jersey Declaration of Death Act was drafted by the New Jersey Commission on Legal and Ethical Problems in the Delivery of Health Care, commonly known as the New Jersey Bioethics Commission. The act was signed into law on 8 April 1991. The act reads: "The death of an individual shall not be declared upon the basis of neurological criteria . . . when the licensed physician authorized to declare death, has reason to believe, on the basis of information provided by a member of the individual's family or any other person knowledgeable about the individual's personal religious beliefs that such a declaration would violate the personal religious beliefs of the individual. In these cases death shall be declared, and the time of death fixed, solely upon the basis of cardio-respiratory criteria."
55. N.J.S.A. 26:6A-5 (2007).
56. M. Tench, "After Buddhist Dies, Legal Battle Continues," Boston Globe, 3 December 2006.
57. A.I. Applbaum et al., "A Family's Request for Complementary Medicine After Patient Brain Death," Journal of the American Medical Association 299, no.18 (14 May 2008): 2188-2193
58. F.A. Curlin et al., "Religion, Conscience, and Controversial Clinical Practices," New England Journal of Medicine 356, no.6 (8 February 2007): 593-600. (Pubitemid 46220819)