Read a March 3, 2010, story by Catholic News Service about a medical study that showed conscious brain activity in some people assumed to be in vegetative states.

In October 2009, Nature magazine published an editorial calling for a “realistic definition of life’s end” in order to facilitate the harvesting and donation of organs, among other things. The editorial sums up the current laws and policies and the state of the debate.

Pope Benedict XVI delivered an address to a Vatican conference on organ donation in which he said that “where certainty has not been reached the principle of precaution must prevail.” Read about the address in an Nov. 7, 2008, article posted by Reuters.

Catholic teaching on the definition of death and the ethics of organ harvesting appears to be in flux. In the latter half of 2008 the issue came to the fore when the Vatican newspaper published a front-page column calling for a re-examination of the definition of brain death. Read an article about the letter posted by the […]

Research reported in the February 2010 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine indicates that some individuals with brain damage previously thought to prevent thought, consciousness and communication in fact possess previously unsuspected levels of awareness. Even if aided by advanced technology, they have the ability to answer questions accurately. Experts caution that this dealt with a small […]

A conference in Jerusalem in early January 2011 debated the brain-versus-breathing parameter. The issue has been in the news in Israel since Israeli soccer legend Avi Cohen was left brain dead after a December motorcycle accident. His bodily functions ceased after eight days, and his family retreated from a previous commitment to donate his organs despite being […]

In November 2010, the Rabbinical Council of America, the central body of Modern Orthodox rabbis in the U.S., circulated a detailed report raising questions as to whether the organization’s longstanding acceptance of brain stem death as a definition of death comported with Jewish law. A majority of Jewish legal scholars cited said death was defined by the […]

On Jan. 6, 2011, the Obama administration reversed course on end-of-life counseling regulations due to concerns that they would revive the “death panels” controversy. Read about it in an article from Christianity Today.

Read a June 6, 2011, “Personal Health” column in The New York Times about a New York State law, the Palliative Care Information Act, that requires doctors to offer to discuss end-of-life care with terminally ill patients. California passed a similar law in 2009 and other states are considering similar measures.