DailyDirt: Death Ain't So Simple
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Medical technology is making progress all the time, and with that progress comes new ethical questions. One of the big issues that we may need to deal with soon is determining who is really dead (or when to stop resuscitating). Growing new organs isn’t quite a reliable technology, so until we can re-grow our own organs, we’re not immortals. But we’re not dead yet….
- An adapted excerpt from “The Undead” by Dick Teresi discusses how the definition of death has evolved with medical technology. People used to call it death when the heart stopped beating… but they don’t do that anymore. [url]
- Brain dead people are being harvested for their organs, but these folks might not be as dead as you’d think. Billy Crystal might call these patients “mostly dead” — and revive them for true love…. [url]
- Facebook encouraged over 100,000 users to register as organ donors recently. However, there’s still a large unfilled need for more donors — would getting more Facebook “likes” be a good incentive for live donors? [url]
- To discover other biological curiosities, check out what’s currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]
By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.
Filed Under: billy crystal, death, dick teresi, ethics, medicine, organ donor
Companies: facebook
Comments on “DailyDirt: Death Ain't So Simple”
Over eager organ harvesters are an actual fear of mine. This does not help.
My reccomendation of method to anyone contemplating suicide:
Starve yourself!
If you are so intent on killing yourself, see if this desire is stronger than your desire to eat. Will you break down and go for the cheeseburger (or whatever)?
IMO, the title should prove to be true, “Death Ain’t so Simple.”
*The method gives you time to think your decision through much more than a bullet, rope, height or poison will.
My reccomendation of method to anyone contemplating suicide: Starve yourself!
Yes, and might bring some insight to out the “attention whore” sort (read almost fake) suicide attempts. People will get tired of their bullshit and stop trying to get them to eat.
I don’t think immortality would be as simple as that. Dealing with organ failure is one thing, but what about neurodegeneration? Unless you can keep from going senile, you’d end up an undying vegetable.
... you'd end up an undying vegetable.
Terry Sciavo was one notorious case.
Another one I look at is Stephen Hawking. He has survived an amazingly long time with a neurodegenerative disease. But as time goes on, he loses more and more control of his own body. It can currently take him an hour just to compose one sentence on his speech machine, by twitching a cheek muscle, I think it is.
Has he decided what he?s going to do when even that becomes impossible?
... you'd end up an undying vegetable.
Those are two good examples of the extremes of the “undead” –and how it’s tricky to determine exactly what a person’s quality of life is.
Re:
Yeah, that article makes me want to write on my ID that I’ll give my organs only if they put me under. Not sure if that would hold any legal value though.
Oh, this makes me feel ill.