PHL100Y1 Lecture Notes - Dementia, Cultural Relativism, Fetus
Document Summary
She is 87 and living with advanced dementia. She has a written advanced directive indicating her wishes to have all resuscitative and life- sustaining measures applied. She has been intubated for advanced dyspnea accompanying pneumonia. Her physicians suspect intestinal obstruction, but an mri is required to confirm. Consent is a moral issue because it deals with autonomy, self-determination. The infant is born with anencephaly: there is a main brain stem but a lack of functioning cerebrum. The baby will never gain consciousness lacks the neocortex responsible for cognition. Infants born with the condition typically die within a few hours to a few days after birth. The parents would like to donate the baby s organs, but transplant organs need to be removed while there is still circulation or immediately after death. Since there is a partially functioning brain stem and spontaneous respiration, the infant cannot be declared brain dead. Utilitarian get the organs to help the greater good.