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

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 pre

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Philosophy and Medicine VOLUME 66 Founding Co-Editor Stuart F. Spicker

Editor College of Medicine and Philosophy Department, Rice University, Houston, Texas

Editorial Board George J. Agich, Department of Bioethics, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio Nicolas Capaldi, Philosophy Department, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma Edmund Erde, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Stratford, New Jersey Becky White, California State University, Chico, California Kevin Wm. Wildes, Philosophy Department, Georgetown University Washington,D.C.

The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.

BEYOND BRAIN DEATH THE CASE AGAINST BRAIN BASED CRITERIA FOR HUMAN DEATH

by

MICHAEL POTTS Associate Professor of Philosophy, Methodist College, Fayetteville, North Carolina, U.S.A.

PAUL A. BYRNE Neonatologist, St. Charles Hospital Oregon, Ohio, U.S.A. and

RICHARD G. NILGES Retired Neurologist, Swedish Covenant Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS NEW YORK / BOSTON / DORDRECHT / LONDON / MOSCOW

eBook ISBN: Print ISBN:

0-306-46882-4 0-792-36578-X

©2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow Print ©2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht All rights reserved No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Kluwer Online at: and Kluwer's eBookstore at:

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgments MICHAEL POTTS, PAUL A. BYRNE, AND RICHARD G. NILGES / Introduction: Beyond Brain Death PAUL A. BYRNE, SEAN O’REILLY, PAUL M. QUAY, AND PETER W. SALSICH, JR. / Brain Death—The Patient, the Physician, and Society DAVID ALBERT JONES, O.P. / Metaphysical Misgivings about “Brain Death” MICHAEL POTTS / Pro-Life Support of the Whole Brain Death Criteria: A problem of Consistency DAVID W. EVANS / The Demise of “Brain Death” in Britain DAVID J. HILL / Brain Stem Death: A United Kingdom Anaesthetist’s View YOSHIO WATANABE / Brain Death and Cardiac Transplantation: Historical Background and Unsettled Controversies in Japan TOMOKO ABE / Philosophical and Cultural Attitudes Against Brain Death and Organ Transplantation in Japan JOSEF SEIFERT / Brain Death and Euthanasia MARK HAVERLAND / The Moment of Death and the Morally Safer Path MARTYN EVANS AND MICHAEL POTTS / A Narrative Case Against Brain Death RICHARD G. NILGES / Organ Transplantation, Brain Death, and the Slippery Slope: A Neurosurgeon’s Perspective

vii

1

21 91

121 139 159 171 191 201 229 237 249

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

259

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

261

INDEX OF NAMES

267

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book of essays offers, we believe, a significant contribution to the debate over the proper criteria of death and an important challenge to the prevailing orthodoxy which identifies brain death with the death of the person. The editors wish to note