COMMENTARY: The April 11 statement by The National Catholic Bioethics Center affirms that ‘a partial brain death standard can never be acceptable to Catholics.
Recovery from “Brain Death”: A Neurologist’s Apologia – Revisited After 27 Years The author explains the genesis of this study on brain death as follows:
In February 1997, my article “Recovery from ‘Brain Death’: A Neurologist’s Apologia” was published in the Linacre Quarterly 64(1):30-96 (the official journal of the Catholic Medical Association). It recounts my conceptual journey from being a vocal advocate of “brain death” to a vocal critic.
The article explains my early interest in things neurological and later in “brain death.” The year I began my academic career, 1981, witnessed the publication of the milestone monograph on “brain death” by the President’s Commission, which endorsed the biological rationale of the brain as central integrator of the body. This explanation impressed me, but I was also impressed by a parallel line of reasoning that the brain, specifically its neocortex, is necessary for awareness and thought, so that without neocorti
Bioethicists, doctors and lawyers are weighing whether to redefine how someone should be declared dead. A change in criteria for brain death could have wide-ranging implications for patients' care.