Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 74(4) Nov 2024

Correspondence

Re- Brain Stem Death

Correspondence from Antony Porter, CMQ August 2024, Vol 74 No 3
From Dr Margaret Sealey, retired anaesthetist.

Dear Editor,

Antony Porter brings up the case of a pregnant woman who has suffered brain stem death. The unborn child has an indisputable right to life - and therefore to every effort to maintain the life of his mother's body for his benefit. His mother herself surely would have wanted this. It is a right of the child's which may not be overruled by any other interest.

But he, Antony Porter, has not properly understood what brain stem death means. It means that the mother's body is no longer capable of serving her in her moral choices, which is the whole purpose of her life on earth. This brings up the problem, which I attempted to outline, of the metaphysical status of her organs that remain alive.

I was expecting to be challenged on the metaphysical status of one who is in a vegetative state. It came to me not via your correspondence page but through other channels, nevertheless I will address it here. Is the person in a vegetative state also incapable of moral decision making? As evidenced by his ability to breathe he has not suffered brain stem death and therefore although cerebrally damaged he can still receive and respond cerebrally to input from the outside world. We cannot possibly know of what decision making he is capable until very much more work has been done by neuroscientists and pursued by neurologists. In the process of which work, it seems to me, we would learn very much more about the brain. In the meantime we can discover what love, physiotherapy (muscle movement has an awakening effect as anaesthetists well know) and stimulation (we all know how dull our brains become without it) can achieve.

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Sealey
(Dr)