I'm Not Dead Yet!

In this “moral debate” on the Toronto Star’s website, there is an interesting discussion on what it means to be ‘dead’ in today’s world, where technological advances mean that a person’s body can go on living long after brain activity has ceased.

During most of the early stages of medicine, a person was considered dead when their heart stopped beating – which, due to advances in technology, became largely irrelevant, as “machines could keep a heart beating indefinitely.” Death then came to be defined as the point at which the brain ceased to register any activity – “brain death” – and this is, with some notable exceptions, still the accepted definition.

This distinction, however, is not always a clean one – in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, for example, an article questioned whether or not brain-death was what defined ‘life’ within a person. The author of the article goes on to say that continuing advances in technology will only blur the question further. He uses the example of heart donors: when is the appropriate time to collect the heart for donation? Sooner is of course better for preserving the heart, but what if there is a chance for recovery? Who gets to make that decision?

The points are certainly valid, and the debate is one that will surely have a large religious component. Ethics and religion are inextricably intertwined for many people, and it is sure to affect the medical field as technology grows ever more capable of extending life past what is currently considered ‘death.’ The Catholic Church’s stance will certainly play a large role in where the debate goes, especially given the prevalence of Catholic medical institutions in this country and abroad.

I certainly don’t have any answers, nor do I think any will soon be forthcoming, but it’s one to keep an eye on.