The issue of determining death becomes further confused by the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA), which, ironically, was drafted with the intent to clarify the issue.
In days of yore, the absence of a heartbeat was the gold standard for determining death, but even that wasn't foolproof.
Furthermore, laws for determining death would have to be revised.
First, what considerations favor this approach over the traditional focus on cardiopulmonary function in determining death?
A defender of tradition might respond that we can avoid most of these unsavory consequences while legally adopting traditional criteria for determining death (see, e.g., DeGrazia 2005, 152 8).
As we have seen, however, modern life-supports permitted cardiopulmonary function without brain function, setting up a competition between traditional and whole-brain criteria for determining death.
Determining death using neurologic criteria, generally referred to as 'brain death', has been accepted for decades in most developed countries.
Circulatory-respiratory or brain tests are widely accepted for defining and determining death, but there are still several controversial issues.
The issues of defining and determining death have always generated a lively scientific and ethical debate that is brought into sharper focus around the subject of organ donation.
The homes, which have no medical credentials, get to make that determination, and they usually determine deaths to be natural.
