Evans M
University College, Swansea.
J Med Ethics. 1990 Dec;16(4):191-4. doi: 10.1136/jme.16.4.191.
Does it matter that the hearts of 'brainstem dead' patients may persist in beating spontaneously? Hostile reactions, to the Danish inclusion of cardiac criteria in the determination of death, betray reductionist views of human life at the core of 'brainstem' conceptions of death. Such views (whether centred on neurological function or on abstractions concerning 'personhood') supplant the richness of human life and death with the poverty of essentialism: and mask the lethal nature of beating-heart organ retrieval. The affirmation of cardiac criteria for death is not an alternative form of essentialism as some critics suppose, but part of an understanding of human life and death which rejects essentialism altogether. The spontaneously persistent heartbeat does not constitute human life, but most certainly counts for it.
“脑干死亡”患者的心脏可能会持续自主跳动，这重要吗？丹麦将心脏标准纳入死亡判定引发的负面反应，暴露出“脑干”死亡概念核心处对人类生命的还原论观点。这类观点（无论以神经功能为中心，还是以关于“人格”的抽象概念为中心）用本质主义的贫乏取代了人类生命与死亡的丰富性：并掩盖了心脏跳动中器官获取的致命本质。对死亡心脏标准的肯定并非如一些批评者所认为的那样是本质主义的另一种形式，而是对人类生命与死亡理解的一部分，这种理解完全摒弃了本质主义。自主持续的心跳并不构成人类生命，但无疑对人类生命至关重要。
