Hastings Center Report
What Is Death?
There’s still no definitive answer to this enduring and consequential question.
Since its earliest days in the 1960s, bioethics has explored the biological, legal, religious, and philosophical aspects of death to help come up with a uniform definition, explains an article in the latest issue of the Hastings Center Report, but “the problem of uniformity remains a significant challenge.”
A major point of disagreement concerns death by neurological criteria, or brain death. While brain death is legally considered death throughout the United States, the phenomenon of brain death remains controversial, particularly with the advancement of life-support technologies. The Hastings Center Report article analyzes a recent effort to revise the legal definition of death in the U.S., showing how it was indefinitely paused three years ago when the working group was unable to form a consensus. Read the Hastings Center Report article.
For a deeper dive into the debate over defining death, see our 2018 special report, “Defining Death: Organ Transplantation and the Fifty-Year Legacy of the Harvard Report on Brain Death.”
