Brain Death and the Dutch Organ Donation Law

According to many legal systems that regulate organ donation, such as Dutch law, a brain-dead patient is regarded as a mortal remains. In general, these systems do not take into account the fact that this definition is being heavily criticized and the far-reaching consequences thereof. In the case of organ transplantation, vital organs are procured from persons who, from a biological perspective, may not yet be dead. A government that values scientific data and wants to provide honest and reliable information to its citizens has to account for this critique of its policy as citizens have the right to be well-informed. Whoever makes the decision to donate organs performs a special act of human solidarity, but the readiness to donate organs in the case of brain death is not inherent to the demand to love one’s neighbor as one loves oneself. Summary: According to legislation on organ donation in many countries, a brain-dead patient is regarded as a mortal remains. The law disregards the fact, however, that this definition is being heavily criticized and that it has far-reaching consequences. In the case of organ transplantation, vital organs are procured from persons who, from a biological perspective, may not yet been dead. A government that values scientific data and wants to provide honest and reliable information to its citizens has to account for this critique in its policy. Citizens have the right to be well-informed.

An Empirical Research for Secured Storage and Protecting Unauthorized access of Organ Donor Details

Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, particularly data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Here an online organ donation system is developed with the help of the aforementioned technologies. The main aim of the paper is to make sure that the organs of the people, who have come forward to donate, reach the respective individual in need of the particular organ. Since everything is stored in the cloud, anybody can access it anytime, which in turn puts the data at risk. The secured sharing of donor detail is necessary. Encryption is done at two levels to provide security, one while the data is entered and the other done by a third party providing proxy re-encryption. Now, whenever a brain-dead patient is in the hospital, after thorough verification for any complications, the deciding parameters such as the organs that can be transplanted, blood group, presence of HIV positive and location, is compared with the cloud database using query filtering, which results in the nearest organ donor available meeting the requirements. The performance enhancement of cloud data using encryption schemes is of high potential.

Brain Death

This chapter considers the issue of brain death. The cornerstone of the diagnosis of brain death is a careful and sure clinical neurologic examination. In addition, a thorough evaluation of clinical history, neuroradiologic studies, and laboratory tests needs to be carried out to rule out potential confounding variables. The diagnosis of brain death rests on two major and indispensable tenets. The first is that the cause of brain nonfunction must be inherently irreversible. The second is that the vital structures of the brain necessary to maintain consciousness and independent vegetative survival are damaged beyond all possible recovery. It looks at how to determine that brain death has occurred. It goes on to outline the clinical signs for brain death. The chapter also looks at the differences between brain death and prolonged coma. Finally, it explains the management of the brain dead patient.

Scotist Hylomorphism in Support of Total Brain Death

Empirical evidence has led some philosophers to question total brain death (TBD), because a brain-dead patient’s body remains integrated; it can still grow and age. Catholic philosophers have based arguments for and against TBD on Thomist principles of hylomorphism. Given such principles, the arguments against TBD appear stronger. Blessed John Duns Scotus provides an alternative set of principles. Specifically, Scotus is a pluralist regarding substantial form. However, his pluralism is distinct in that he denies a substantial form to the body as a whole and instead speaks of part-substances that are integrated with each other by efficient and final causal chains. Scotus’s hylomorphism, unlike St. Thomas Aquinas’s, can both defend TBD and adequately describe the physical characteristics of the totally brain-dead patient.