By Damien Keown.
This article raises concerns about the degree to which potential
donors are aware that their layman's understanding of death may not
be the same as that enshrined in protocols employing the cri-terion
of brain death. There would seem to be a need for greater public
education of a kind which acknowledges the debate around the
practical and conceptual difficulties associated with brain death,
and makes clear what the implications of a diagnosis of brain death
are for the donor and his or her relatives. The re-mainder of the
article explores the discrepancy between the modern concept of brain
death and the traditional Buddhist un-derstanding of death as the
loss of the body's organic integrity as opposed to simply the loss of
its cerebral functions.
<http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2010/05/Keown-final1.pdf>Link
(PDF)
