Here's Peter Singer's op-ed in the Washington Post on the debate over brain death, presently used to decide when deceased donor organs can be used for transplantation:
What is the line between life and death? Here’s my answer. By Peter Singer October 17, 2023
"When it is justifiable to end a human life?
"Here’s my answer: When consciousness has gone, never to return. Other bioethicists have different views. No surprise there. But on this we should all agree: These differences need to be hammered out in public, not behind closed doors by a body that few people have heard of.
"The last effort to define death in the United States was in 1980, and at that time there was remarkable consensus on a decision so consequential. Then, the commission proposed a new Uniform Determination of Death Act establishing that in addition to the traditional determination of death by the heart ceasing to beat, a person is dead when their whole brain has irreversibly ceased to function. All 50 states and D.C. adopted the act’s central proposition — which is staggering, really, given today’s battles over when life begins."
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