In Margaret Lock’s book Twice Dead, she introduces us her mindset and ideas on organ transplants and the new reinvention of the term death. In these first few chapters, Lock focuses on the development of increasing organ transplants over the past few years with increased medical technology and advancement. It was “only during the past twenty years have medical knowledge and technology advanced sufficiently for organ transplantation to become routine, with surgeons performing thousands of operations each year” (Lock, 1). With the newly increase in organ transplants, the focus in these chapters come mostly from the bodies of individuals diagnosed as “brain dead” which lead them into being possible organ donors for these surgeries. The term “brain dead” has really redefined what death really means. New medical technology is now able to monitor individuals with graphs, charts, and be able to acknowledge whether or not a patient is having a normal heart rate, pressure, and the right amount of activity occurring in the brain. Within the past decade or so, medical institutions are now able to care for patients and extend their lifespan a while longer with machines that work to continue their bodily functions. Lock explains to us in these first few chapters how the term “brain death, “which to doctors and medical personnel, means that an individual’s brain is not functioning anymore and without it and the monitors that continue to help the rest of the body alive, the person is then considered “brain dead,” in which “pulling the cord” is therefore encouraged to avoid waste of time and money. Although there are family members that would never allow for their loved ones to be let go unless their body, itself, decides to entirely stop working, with the new term “brain death, “ patients whom are released open up the new world of available organs needed for organ transplants.
Increasing medical technological advances has created blurred boundaries with the new definition of death. Individuals now that have lost brain function but has continued heart functions can be deemed as dead. Death has no concrete boundary between the patient and the doctor. In relation to what we have been discussing since the beginning of this class, Cartesian Dualism, comes into play again, with how people in society today differentiates the importance of our bodies with our mind and soul with our new reinvention of the word death. With a newly reinvented meaning of death, brain death in terms put into the same category as well because “if there is no possibility for cognitive function in an individual because of irreversible damage to the upper brain, that that person can be pronounced as no longer have any “individual interest” (Lock, 8). In terms of putting a new meaning to death and associating it with “brain death, “ the organs of these donors now are seen more of a “cadaver like” quality. “This, in effect is what has happened to brain-dead organ donors in most of the countries routinely involved with organ donation: they are constituted as cadaverlike, their rights as members of society stripped from them” (Lock, 42). From new meaning in words it seems like it also brings along a new type of how much something is now worth in society. A new worth is put onto organs where, while in some countries they are valued greatly, others are put under the black market for distribution.
Unfortunately, many countries may have different views on organ transplant and with the new reinvention of the term death but Lock specifically focuses on two main countries in these chapters, Japan and the United States. Japan apparently even with new medical technology engraved in their society, they have different and opposing views of “brain death” and organ transplant. Lock states that cultures are widely used as the reason why certain values and beliefs come up from different countries, like that of Japans and the US, but “in Japan, culture is self consciously called on by some as a rhetorical device to assert a moral position against recognition of brain death” (Lock, 46), while in America, organ transplant can be widely accepted in terms of having the opportunity to give the “gift of life” to any other individual that is dying. But even with the moral value of giving the “gift of life by giving up your own organ or signing a release for your organs to be distributed once you are pronounce dead or brain dead, there are issues that arise with the comodification of these organs. “…for an organ to be of worth in this way, it must first be made into an object, a thing-in-itself, entirely differentiated from the individual from whom it was procured” (Lock, 48). Even in our society where confidentiality is secured with organ donors and recipients, sometimes these heroic acts come unrewarded and rarely memorialized. Some societies, like Japan, might have different values that prevent patients more from being released from life support once they are pronounce “brain dead” but other societies like our country for example, is so reliant on medical technology and advancement itself, where it even becomes part of our own culture and part of our own belief system. Organ transplant and the reinvention of the word death associated along with “brain death” may have a moral value to it but it could possibly mean something other than providing a person with the “gift of life” but avoiding the final stage of life, showing fear and bringing hopes that mankind could one day play God and be able to control when they are able to die.
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, there were many breathing machines and heart supporting machines that came about with new technological advanced. These new machines made it possible for individuals to live longer and avoid the so called “natural death.” Artificial ventilation is one main example of a new technological advancement, but even in that case. “The use of the ventilator eventually precipitated a reconsideration of the conventional medical understanding of death” (Lock, 58). This, in turn, put a newer great meaning to death. A meaning that goes beyond just watching some grow of old age, heart and lung failures, but more of a technological meaning where as “respiration, blood flow, and electrical activity of the heart were recognized as critical signs of life” (Lock, 70).
With the focus widely on organ transplant and the reinvention of the meanings death and “brain dead,” Lock brings upon important issues of having new advancement in medical technology within societies today. Although she does not put into blame of culture as changing the values and meaning of these issues, she focuses more on the meaning of death and the development of the new term “brain dead.” Apparently, the meanings could be misleading and misused by certain societies and redefining it could possible change our view and perspective on the meaning itself, but I believe it revolves specifically on culture itself and our fear of death. The fear that we must avoid as much as possible, to the point where we turn to advancements to improve and cover up what should have been viewed as a natural process of life.
Works Cited:
Lock, Margaret. 2002. Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 1-13, 32-53, 57-75.
Pictures Used:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/death/default.htm
http://docinthemachine.com/category/implants/
http://alabamaorgancenter.com/funeral.php
http://intensivecare.hsnet.nsw.gov.au/current/community/equipment/ventilators
http://hubpages.com/hub/Slow-Down-the-Aging-Process
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