Beyond Brain Death: The Case Against Brain Based Criteria for Human Death

✍ Scribed by Michael Potts, Paul A. Byrne, Richard G. Nilges (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 272
• Series: Philosophy and Medicine 66
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Beyond Brain Death offers a provocative challenge to one of the most widely accepted conclusions of contemporary bioethics: the position that brain death marks the death of the human person. Eleven chapters by physicians, philosophers, and theologians present the case against brain-based criteria for human death. Each author believes that this position calls into question the moral acceptability of the transplantation of unpaired vital organs from brain-dead patients who have continuing function of the circulatory system. One strength of the book is its international approach to the question: contributors are from the United States, the United Kingdom, Liechtenstein, and Japan. This book will appeal to a wide audience, including physicians and other health care professionals, philosophers, theologians, medical sociologists, and social workers.

✦ Table of Contents

Introduction: Beyond Brain Death....Pages 1-20
Brain Death—the Patient, the Physician, and Society....Pages 21-89
Metaphysical Misgivings about “Brain Death”....Pages 91-119
Pro-Life Support of the Whole Brain Death Criterion: A Problem of Consistency....Pages 121-138
The Demise of “Brain Death” in Britain....Pages 139-158
Brain Stem Death: A United Kingdom Anaesthetist’s View....Pages 159-169
Brain Death and Cardiac Transplantation: Historical Background and Unsettled Controversies in Japan....Pages 171-190
Philosophical and Cultural Attitudes Against Brain Death and Organ Transplantation in Japan....Pages 191-199
Brain Death and Euthanasia....Pages 201-227
The Moment of Death and the Morally Safer Path....Pages 229-235
A Narrative Case Against Brain Death....Pages 237-247
Organ Transplantation, Brain Death and the Slippery Slope: A Neurosurgeon’s Perspective....Pages 249-258

✦ Subjects

Ethics; Transplant Surgery; Neurology; Medical Law