Death and Dying by Rosamond Rhodes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Death and Dying by Rosamond Rhodes - analyse ExampleFrom biological point of view, death is marked by a point where the entire or a part of the organ system ceases to work. Again, from a social point of view, death is marked by the point where a physician or a socially authorized person, after assessing a body, decl ars it all in(p). Moreover, from a moral point of view, death is that point where a person ceases to be a person i.e. when he/she can no longer act out of reasons or when they cannot be held responsible for their behavior. There ar many criteria on the basis of which a person can be stated dead. First is the cardiorespiratory criterion whereby, when a person stops breathing and his/her heartbeat stops as well, the person is announced dead. This criterion has been followed by many organized religious bodies across the globe as a monetary standard for declaring a person dead. Next is the brain dead criterion whereby a person is declare dead if his/her full brain canno t function and will never be able to function again. Studies arrive revealed that cardio respiratory death shortly follows brain death. Brain death, whereby a brain becomes permanently non functionary, has been accepted socially as a standard as good as the cardiopulmonary standard. The need to declare death on the basis of death of the brain has gained importance because it gives the physicians a perfectly legal and social sanction to declare a person dead, maintain the dead body using technology and remove the transplantable organs in a way such that it leads to a better functioning of the organs in the recipient. The threesome and most controversial criterion is the cortical death criteria. Cortical death is where a person is declared dead on the basis of the disability of a person to function as a person. Individuals who have lost cortical functions, as argued by some physicians and bioethics, have lost their capacity to feel and olibanum have lost everything that makes life worthwhile. Under this standard, people who are in a persistent vegetational state or those who are suffering from permanent coma can be declared dead. match to the author, by following this criteria of declaring a person dead, a scenario which would be physically, mentally and economically challenging for both(prenominal) patient and his/her loved ones can be avoided. Moreover, given the scarce medical resources, a significant summate of these resources can be saved by shifting them from patients in the persistently vegetative state to the handling of those who have moral existence.2 But the reason behind the controversy surrounding this third criterion lies in the fact that different people perceive life in different ways. Whether a person should don pain, humiliation or prolonged unconsciousness or not, is an individuals own attitude/preference. The patients who are in an active state can make their own decisions by accepting or refusing to suffer a treatment. But for those who cannot make these decisions on their own, a person very chose to him/her takes these healthcare related decisions on his/her behalf. A person can, in advance choose a person whom he/she