ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the main issues raised by the situation of maternal brain-death. It includes the moral and legal status of the fetus, the interest/right of the fetus to be born, the gestational age of the fetus, pragmatic obstacles to maintaining a dead pregnant woman on life-support. The chapter also includes the rights/interests of brain-dead people, the legal requirement for consent, rights of next-of-kin and friends of the deceased, and the physician-patient relationship. When on life-support, brain-dead patients tend to run into a host of medical complications. The Uniform Determination of Death Act, proposed in 1980 by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research follows the Harvard Medical School Ad Hoc Committee's recommendations in this matter and provides a model for legislating the brain cessation criterion as legal death. The strong moral base, respect for the dead is reflected in daily psychological inclinations.