Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

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Zotero  

Hemmati Moghadam A, Samadi H, Naeimi F. Death as a Process. IJMEHM 2019; 12 :371-381
URL: http://ijme.tums.ac.ir/article-1-5956-en.html

How can we determine that death has occurred? To answer this question, two points should be noted. First, in order to determine the incidence of death, there should be a standard for determining the occurrence of death; secondly, we need to determine certain clinical tests to determine whether the criterion has been met. In this article, we first introduce different criteria that are presented in different definitions of death, and then offered arguments against each of them. Cardiopulmonary and brain criteria are also introduced and criticized. The basic objection in these definitions is that they see death as an event. At the end, it will be argued that biological death, contrary to conventional wisdom, is a process, not an event. Based on this understanding of death, we provide a definition that addresses the problems of other criteria and shed new light to some issues related to death such as euthanasia and brain death.