“In the summer of 1968, while youth was redefining itself in Paris, San Francisco and elsewhere, a committee at the Harvard Medical School was busy redefining the end of life. Following its recommendations, almost all rich countries adopted a definition of death based on the extinction of activity in the brain, rather than in the heart or any other organ. In some places, notably America, that means monitoring the brain’s electrical chatter to make sure the whole organ has died. In others, such as Britain, the brain’s stem is regarded as the crucial part. In this case simpler tests can be applied, such as whether a patient’s pupils react to light. Either criterion, however, seems more reasonable than just registering a pulse, since it is the brain, not the heart, that makes the individual.” [editor’s note: We could say this is just the other end of the abortion debate, which asks when human-life begins … but we won’t - SAT ] (10/09/08)