Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

306 NICANOR AUSTRIACOcompatible with the Catholic moral tradition. However, it is stillimportant to ascertain the effects of replacing the BD criteriawith systems-based criteria for death on organ transplantationprocedures. At the outset, we should acknowledge that it is notclear how long a period of time must pass after the cessation ofrespiration and circulation before the molecular integration ofthe body has been irreversibly lost. This would require muchempirical and clinical work. Shewmon has suggested that twentyminutes may be sufficient. 72 In response, critics have chargedthat this would effectively end 90% of all human organ transplantation,and possibly 100% of unpaired vital organ transplantation.73 I would respond, however, that this does not haveto follow from a systems-based understanding of death. TheCatholic Church’s moral prohibition against the donation ofunpaired vital organs from a living individual is based upon hermoral prohibitions against murder and suicide – harvesting aliving heart or another vital organ from a living human beingwould necessarily lead to his death – and no one, including theindividual himself, is morally permitted to do this. However, asShewmon has pointed out, this no longer applies to the personwhose heart and lungs have stopped functioning – removing aliving heart or another vital organ from a living human beingwhose body has ceased respiration and circulation does not leadto the patient’s death. 74 The patient’s death, the disintegration ofhis body, occurs from the lack of oxygen experienced by individualcells scattered throughout his body. In other words, after systole,the heart ceases to be a vital organ for the life of the indi-Diamond is not a utilitarian because he quickly acknowledges that “thiswould not be an unacceptable price to pay if the result were to be therestoration of a societal respect for the sanctity of human life that had somehowbeen lost in the acceptance of whole-brain death as tantamount to deathof the person.” See DIAMOND, “Brain-Based Determination,” p. 77.72A. SHEWMON, “’Brainstem Death,” ‘Brain Death,’ and ‘Death’: A CriticalRe-Evaluation of the Purported Evidence,” Issues in Law and Medicine 14(1998): 125-145, pp. 141-142.73DIAMOND, “Brain-Based Determination,” p. 77.74For Shewmon’s position, see “Brainstem Death, Brain Death andDeath,” pp. 128-129.