The Death of Brain Death: A Christian Perspective
Courtney Campbell, Hundere Professor of Religion and Culture, Oregon State University
The recent case of Jahi McMath, a 13-year-old African-American girl from a Christian family, who suffered an unexpectedly adverse reaction to a tonsillectomy and subsequently was determined to have met the criteria for brain death has revived scholarly and policy controversies over the concept and justification of neurological criteria for determining death. Christian theologians, ethicists, and ecclesiastical leaders have been engaged in debates about the criteria for the determination of death for several decades. This engagement led the President’s Commission on Ethical Issues to observe in their 1981 landmark report, Defining Death, that the Christian theological belief that “the human essence or soul departs at the moment of death is not inconsistent with the establishment, through neurological examination, of the time when death occurs.” However, recent scientific, philosophical, and policy controversy about the validity of death determination by neurological criteria, as reflected in debates about the Jahi McMath case, has been mirrored in sharp critiques and disputes among religious scholars, especially within the Roman Catholic tradition, and called into question presumed theological consensus on the brain death standard.
This paper presentation identifies five theological and moral interests Christian religious traditions have in debates regarding criteria for the determination of death – nature of the self, the relation of religion and medical science, the dead donor rule, decisions about ending life, and moral authorities for biomedical decisions. It then examines the controversies that have emerged in Roman Catholic thinking that have led to calls within that tradition for rejecting brain death standards and for a moratorium on organ transplantation.
The paper concludes by identifying some important lessons that the controversy within Catholicism over neurological criteria for determining death provides for other Christian and non-Christian religious traditions when scientific consensus upon which religious interpretations rely dissolves through empirical based-criticism.
This paper presentation identifies five theological and moral interests Christian religious traditions have in debates regarding criteria for the determination of death – nature of the self, the relation of religion and medical science, the dead donor rule, decisions about ending life, and moral authorities for biomedical decisions. It then examines the controversies that have emerged in Roman Catholic thinking that have led to calls within that tradition for rejecting brain death standards and for a moratorium on organ transplantation.
The paper concludes by identifying some important lessons that the controversy within Catholicism over neurological criteria for determining death provides for other Christian and non-Christian religious traditions when scientific consensus upon which religious interpretations rely dissolves through empirical based-criticism.