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Critical analysis of the moral soundness of the "brain death" and "controlled cardiac/circulatory death" protocols used in organ transplantation. Analyzes the rationales supporting these new definitions of death, and argues against them, showing that they contradict both Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics and contemporary biophilosophy.

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This book critically examines the moral soundness of the two definitions of death used in organ donation-transplantation: "brain death" (heart-beating) and "controlled cardiac/circulatory death" (non-heart-beating). The author carries out a multidisciplinary study of the crucial moral issues surrounding these new definitions to answer the question: are the donors truly dead at the time of organ removal?

The book probes the history of these protocols, and the rationales of pro-"brain death" Catholic scholars who assert that brain-dead individuals are dead because, without a functioning brain, they have undergone a substantial change. The author´s arguments, firmly grounded in both classical metaphysics and contemporary biophilosophy, demonstrate that the new definitions of death are unsound because they contradict both Aristotelian-Thomistic anthropology and holistic biophilosophy.

The book also looks at the new definitions in terms of Christian ethics. It provides a detailed critical analysis of John Paul II´s 2000 Address to the Transplantation Society, showing that, contrary to popular belief, the Catholic Church has not given any formal approval to the "brain death" protocol.

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Chapter 1: The Position of the Pontificia Academia Scientiarum - Chapter 2: The Positions of Specific Catholic Scholars - Chapter 3: Metaphysical Conceptions of the Human Person - Chapter 4: Contemporary Biophilosophical Understanding about Life and Death - Chapter 5: Human Dignity, Sacredness of Life, and the Papal Pronouncements on Life, Death, and Organ Donation

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Doyen Nguyen, MD, STD is both a theologian and a hematopathologist. A graduate of Temple University Medical School and a scholar of the Leopold Schepp Foundation, she is a lay Dominican and, currently, an independent academic researcher associated with the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome where she obtained her doctorate in moral theology, specializing in end-of-life ethics.

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