Re: Determining end of life (Was Re: Darwin's Appendix)

Amitai <chr04ha@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
mos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Amitai <chr0...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

big snip.Amitai does yoeman work in recapitulating. Kudos.

IMO, we have a moral obligation to ensure that no sentient creature
is considered to be dead while it is still alive. In the case of an
animal, it should not be converted to food,

Hmm, we _kill_ animals for food, so why should "too soon" say be a
problem?

If "tza`ar ba`alei `hayyim" (avoidance of unnecessary suffering
by living creatures) doesn't interest you,

Tzaar ba`alei `hayyim has parameters. If there is human "need" then
it does not necessarily apply. Obviously "need" has to be defined.

perhaps "ever min ha`hai" (taking flesh from a living animal for
food) does.

I would assume the animal is dead bfore the food is eaten. but you
raise an interesting halachic question. Would flesh taken from a live
animal become permissable after the animal's death. I don't know.

thrown on a dungheap or buried if there is any possiblity that
it is still alive. The criterion that we use to determine its
death can vary, provided that it is reliable.

And it was _specifically_ regarding tha word "reliable" that I asked
my question which started this thread.

See below.

If the animal has not been breathing for a sufficiently long
period, if its heartbeat has stopped - again for a sufficiently
long period, and certainly if it has started to decompose, it can
safely be regarded as dead.
Until quite recently, determining whether a human is dead was not
essentially different.
Extended respiratory or cardiac failure, let alone putrefaction, were
each compelling
evidence of death. Now, after the development of technological "life
support" systems, this
is no longer true. The simplest of these is cold storage. Few would
insist that a corpse that
was frozen to inhibit putrefaction is alive. The test is to take it
out of cold storage, let
it thaw and see whether it comes back to life. (Let's ignore the
unpleasant thought that the
person may have been refrigerated while still alive and ultimately
froze to death.)

It is no less absurd to keep a brain dead person under life support,
and then claim that s/he is alive because his/her lungs are breathing,
his/her blood is circulating and his/her heart is
beating. If the person is brain dead, these functions will stop as
soon as the plug is pulled.

"Life" when it comes to discussions of pulling the plug, is defined
morally, as I said above. Science can inform the moral decision, not
determine it.

Quite the contrary. The moral responsibility is to refrain from
pulling the plug before we are certain that the person is no longer
alive. If the person is brain dead, pulling the plug will merely stop
artifically induced reflex actions. If there is any residual activity
in the person's =A0brain, pulling the plug will have killed a human
being. The conclusion should be obvious.

And my queston was; do we have the ability to distinguish between
these two; between (absolute) brain dead OT1H, and _any_ residual
brain activity OTOH.

The British criterion, Brain Stem Death, does not. It is not
considered necessary; the Americans are more thorough. It should
satisfy you.

From Wickipedia

BRAIN STEM DEATH:
................................
Its equation with human death is based on the concept that when
essential elements of the rain stem - the stalk of the brain which
connects its bulk (the cerebral hemispheres and mid-brain) to the
spinal cord - are permanently out of action it is reasonable to
disregard continuing activity (life) elsewhere in the brain, e.g. in
the thalamus and "higher centres", because there can never again be
consciousness or spontaneous breathing.

BRAIN DEATH is a legal definition of death that refers to the
irreversible end of all brain activity (including involuntary activity
necessary to sustain life) due to total necrosis of the cerebral
neurons following loss of blood flow.
..................
The diagnosis of brain death needs to be rigorous to determine whether
the condition is irreversible. Legal criteria vary, but it generally
requires neurological exams by two independent physicians. The exams
must show complete absence of brain function, and may include two
isoelectric (flat-line) EEGs 24 hours apart.
..................
Alternatively, a radionuclide cerebral blood flow scan that shows
complete absence of intracranial blood flow can be used to confirm the
diagnosis without performing EEGs.

My only question was about those yests. Is it not possible that more
sensitive equipment will pick up brain waves not noticible with
current equipment?

--
Moshe Schorr
It is a tremendous Mitzvah to always be happy! - Reb Nachman of Breslov
The home and family are the center of Judaism, *not* the synagogue.
May Eliezer Mordichai b. Chaya Sheina Rochel have a refuah shlaimah
btoch sha'ar cholei Yisroel.
Disclaimer: Nothing here necessarily reflects the opinion of Hebrew University
Ksiva v'Chatima Tova.
.

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