Redefining Death - Traditional Definition Of Death

Redefining Death - A New Criterion For Death

Advances in medical science have complicated the definition of death. Life-saving measures such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or defibrillation (electrical shock) can restart cardiac activity. The development of the mechanical respirator in the 1950s also prompted a change in the concept of death. An unconscious patient, unable to breathe without assistance, could be kept alive with a res…

Redefining Death - The Government Redefines Death

In 1981, pursuant to the provision of Public Law 95-622, the President's Commission published Defining Death: Medical, Legal and Ethical Issues in the Determination of Death (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office). In its report to President Ronald Reagan and the Congress, the Commission proposed a model statute, the Uniform Determination of Death Act, the guidelines of which woul…

Redefining Death - The Near-death Experience

The term "near-death experience" was first used by Dr. Raymond Moody in Life after Life (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1976), a compilation of interviews with people who claimed to have come back from the dead. A decade earlier, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross investigated out-of-body episodes recounted by her patients. The near-death experience is not a phenomenon limited to modern tim…