When does a human life end? A 2010 monograph by a rabbinic body, a recent book by an independent scholar, and a forthcoming book by another rabbinic organization are the most recent entries in what is among the most discussed halakhic debates of recent times. “Brain death” occurs when patients have incurred brain damage that renders them unable to breathe independently. Increasingly, ventilators can keep their hearts and lungs going. If an absence of heart and lung function is the standard of death, these patients are still alive; therefore, their organs may not be harvested for donation to others. Influenced by this new reality, a 1968 congressional report advocated accepting brain death as the standard of death.
The stakes, on both sides of the issue, could not be higher. If a brain-dead patient is in fact still living but we harvest his organs, we have killed him. If the patient in fact dead but we wrongly fail to harvest his organs, a person in need of them may die on our account. What do Jewish sources have to say about these questions?
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