Medline Plus: End of Life Issues
Read an overview of end-of-life issues from the National Institutes of Health.
Tag: medicine
“Undead Babies: The retreating boundaries of organ harvesting”
Read an Oct. 3, 2008, article in the online magazine Slate about medical ethics and end-of-life issues in the context of organ transplants.
“Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Participants at an International Congress Organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life”
See the text of Pope Benedict XVI’s Nov. 7, 2008, address on organ donation and defining death.
“End of Life Decisions”
See an Oct. 9, 2009, report from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly that explores end-of-life issues.
“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.
“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.