Am I right in inferring that the central problem here is that a lot of places are defining “no heartbeat” as being legally dead, and that is where the problems enter?
Otherwise, why do they even need to be declared dead? Given the full intention of reanimating the person in question, what’s the distinction between this and a medically induced coma? Or the concrete cases of a naturally occurring coma with a person being declared dead but waking up at the last second? Or just a really, really long active medical procedure, leaning on the heart bypass example?
Another relevant edge case: what about that continuous flow total artificial heart company? There’s at least one guy wandering around with no heartbeat, but alive.
Given the full intention of reanimating the person in question, what’s the distinction between this and a medically induced coma?
This is a really interesting question, and one we’ve discussed a lot! I think it would be a very reasonable legal ruling to say that this counted as a kind of long-term medically induced coma. But no one has made that legal argument yet, and we’re committed to complying with the law as it stands.
Am I right in inferring that the central problem here is that a lot of places are defining “no heartbeat” as being legally dead, and that is where the problems enter?
Otherwise, why do they even need to be declared dead? Given the full intention of reanimating the person in question, what’s the distinction between this and a medically induced coma? Or the concrete cases of a naturally occurring coma with a person being declared dead but waking up at the last second? Or just a really, really long active medical procedure, leaning on the heart bypass example?
Another relevant edge case: what about that continuous flow total artificial heart company? There’s at least one guy wandering around with no heartbeat, but alive.
This is a really interesting question, and one we’ve discussed a lot! I think it would be a very reasonable legal ruling to say that this counted as a kind of long-term medically induced coma. But no one has made that legal argument yet, and we’re committed to complying with the law as it stands.
Very reasonable position. It would be great to see a post on the legal investigation at some point, if the team can spare the time.
I’ll add it to our list of potential posts!