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Second Death |
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Description
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This work explores the stages between life and death in the modern era. In today's society, with our vast medical breakthroughs the criteria for death has changed dramatically. With the ability to keep people alive on machines for longer than would have been possible, even 50 years ago, our society has had to re-evaluate the quality of life one should expect. This also means defining where society believes life to reside within the body and mind, and establishing the moment, or even stages of death. Traditionally, when the heart stopped beating and the lungs stopped breathing, death could be assumed. However, in an age when people can be kept breathing on a ventilator and their hearts can continue to beat outside of the body, or in another body, a new definition of death must also be adopted.
The breakthroughs in organ donation have lead to many interesting developments in an age old debate of body/mind separation. The legal definition of Brain Death was acquired to accommodate organ donation and assist doctors who believe patient's bodies are being kept alive by machines, but have reached a stage of life/death from which they will never recover to lead a meaningful life. This stage has been described as a “hybrid of life and death”, (M. Lock, 'Twice Dead. Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death') a dubious point in which a patient's body can show signs of life while their brain does not. What has traditionally been a philosophical debate seems to have been settled by medical science. In a society which is preoccupied with the debate on when life begins, should we not still be debating when does life end?
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