“Trace of Thought is Found in ‘Vegetative’ Patient”
Read a Feb. 3, 2010, New York Times article that discusses the results of the new brain imaging study.
Category: Medical ethics
“When Are You Dead? Science Just Made the Work of Religion a Bit More Difficult”
Read a Feb. 16, 2010, column by By Arri Eisen at ReligionDispatches.org about the religious element to end-of-life issues.
“Catholic Directive May Thwart End-Of-Life Wishes”
Read a Feb. 27, 2010, article from Kaiser Health News about a Catholic directive on end-of-life issues.
“Caution urged after study on brain activity by ‘vegetative’ patients”
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.
“Delimiting Death”
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 slams human organ trade, warns on transplants”
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.
“At the Vatican, not all voices are created equal”
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 […]
“Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in Disorders of Consciousness”
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 […]
“YU ethics expert censures rabbis over brain-stem death”
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 […]