ABSTRACT
As with the beginning of a human being’s life, formulating a proper Thomistic account of a human being’s death, given current scientific data, is quite contentious. Experts in the fields of medicine, biology, philosophy, and theology center the debate on three proposed criteria for determining when death occurs.2 The classical “circulatory/respiratory” criterion specifies death to occur when the intake, processing,and distribution of oxygen throughout the body – the body’s most vital metabolic functions – irreversibly cease.3 Without oxygen,all bodily systems begin to shut down and necrosis ensues. In 1968, with the published report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School (Ad Hoc Committee, 1968), many scholars and medical practitioners began to argue that, since the brain is the central organ which regulates the body’s metabolic functions, irreversible cessation of the functioning of the brain “as a whole” – cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and brainstem – constitutes death. This “whole-brain” criterion of death is based on the understanding that a human organism cannot function as a unified whole without a functioning brain.4
