ABSTRACT
Brain death may seem a long way from the cadavers. This chapter emerges two reasons for elaborating "brain death" criteria. The first concerned provision of appropriate care to patients whose brains were damaged irreversibly but whose hearts continued to beat due to improved methods of resuscitation. Decisions were required as to when artificial life support should be halted and the patient declared dead, a matter of relevance for the suffering and grieving of relatives and for appropriate use of scarce and expensive intensive care facilities. The second reason was grounded in the developments surrounding organ transplantation and the need for viable, intact organs from cadavers, although this never constituted the sole motive for wishing to define death with the precision of brain-based criteria. The centrality of the person lies at the heart of the higher brain definition, and in turn, focuses attention on our humanness and on to the responsibilities lying at the core of human community.
