Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

296 NICANOR AUSTRIACOthat TBD leads to the loss of bodily integration: “Specifically,this [death] consists in establishing, according to clearly determinedparameters commonly held by the international scientificcommunity, the complete and irreversible cessation of allbrain activity (in the cerebrum, cerebellum and brain stem).This is then considered the sign that the individual organism haslost its integrative capacity.” Thus, the Holy Father concludesthat “the fact of death, namely the complete and irreversible cessationof all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seemto conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology.”Clearly, Pope John Paul II’s argument endorsing the neurologicalcriteria for death is an instance of the standard paradigmused by proponents of TBD. 54 As we have seen above, however,Shewmon’s critique of the scientific and medical data seriouslyundermines this defense of TBD. The scientific and medicalcommunities have not shown that TBD leads to the loss of bodilyintegration. The BD patient still manifests bodily integrationand thus must still possess his soul because, by definition, it isthe soul that integrates the body. Thus, the BD patient has notmet the biological definition of death that is presupposed by thePope and the Catholic tradition.Edward J. Furton’s Defense of the TBD CriteriaDr. Edward J. Furton, a Catholic bioethicist at the NationalCatholic Bioethics Center in Boston (U.S.A.) has recently publishedan essay to defend the TBD criteria in light of AlanShewmon’s critique. 55 So far, it is the only response to54Note the one significant difference between the Pope’s argument andthe President’s Commission. For the Pope, the soul is the spiritual principlethat integrates the body. For the Commission, the brain integrates the body.Thus, as Alan Shewmon has correctly pointed out, pace Furton, “in theorthodox, biological rationale [the standard paradigm of our secular society],the brain plays the role of the soul in Aristotelian-Thomistic anthropology.”See SHEWMON, “The Brain and Somatic Integration,” footnote 9, p. 475.Furton misreads Shewmon in his essay, “Brain Death,” p. 469.55FURTON, “Brain Death,” pp. 455-470.