The Concept Of Death

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advanced have made it possible to sustain respiration and cardiac functioning through mechanical means. Thus, more recently, the concept of brain death has gained acceptance. In this view, the irreversible loss of brain activity is the sign that death has occurred. By the late 1980�s brain death, as an essential sign of death, was accepted by the majority of institutes in North America.
Even the concept of brain death has been challenged in recent years. Because a person can lose all capacity for higher mental functioning while lower brain functions, such as spontaneous respiration continue. For this reason, some authorities now argue that death should be considered the loss of the �capacity for consciousness or social interaction.� The sign of death according to this view, is the absence of activity in the higher centres of the brain.
Rapidly advancing medical technology has raised moral questions and introduced new problems defining death legally. Among the issues being ...

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