The legal meaning of death.

Abstract

THE recent human-to-human heart transplants in widely separated parts of the world have exploded public interest and concern in many very fundamental issues of life and of death. Many of these issues have been evident in earlier transplant surgery and other medical-biological advances.' However, it took the transplant of the heart, with all of the investment mankind has in this most vital and romantic organ, to move world concern to the extent we see today. A resolution has been introduced in the U.S. Senate to appoint a Presidential Commission to investigate all of the issues-medical, moral, ethical and legal-which have been raised as a result of recent medical advances, particularly the heart transplants. One of the questions raised by professional and lay people alike has concerned the possible need to redefine death. A new legal definition of death would be significant not only for organ transplant surgery, but also for many other legal issues, such as the passage of property after death and homicide prosecution. It may be helpful, therefore, as a starting point for such a reappraisal to examine the current legal meaning of human death. The most commonly used legal dictionary in the United States, Black's Law Dictionary (4th ed.), p. 488, defines death as