Introduction
The Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) is a draft state law provides a definition of death mainly for application in situations that require legal intervention (Holland, 2013). The Act was drafted in 1981 and offers explanations for when a person can be legally considered dead. According to the Act, a person is dead if all brain functions stop working and cannot be reversed, and when all circulatory and respiratory functions stop (Pellegrino, 2010). In many cases, the cessation of respiratory and circulatory functions is the most commonly used definition. In cases such as comma, a person’s brain functions can be supported through the use of ventilators. Therefore, they cannot be pronounced dead. In many states, if the brain is nonfunctional, the person is considered dead and is therefore removed from life support even if their circulatory and respiratory functions still work (Pellegrino, 2010).
Significance of UDDA
The main use of the Act is to reconcile and align the definitions of death provided by the legal and medical communities in order to avoid confusions. The Act is necessary especially due to advancements in technology that have enabled medical practitioners to monitor brain activity closely (Holland, 2013). The definition of death offered by the UDDA is useful in many legal practice areas that include organ donation, estate law, tort actions, criminal cases, and life insurance. The Act gives people an opportunity to get documents that legally declare the death of their loved ones. Such documents are useful in the aforementioned situations. The Act is also useful because technology has challenged the traditional definition of death. The protection of life by law is a sensitive issue. Therefore, the Act complements traditional and biological definition of death for a more comprehensive approach to the definition of death (Menikoff, 2002).
Pros and cons
The UDDA has several pros. It facilitates the process of death declaration that is important in the resolution of legal cases such as tort actions and criminal cases (Menikoff, 2002). In addition, it removes ambiguities regarding the correct state of declaring someone dead. There are traditional, biological, and medical definitions of declaring someone dead. The Act presents a definition of death that eliminates the ambiguities present in the other methods. Moreover, it maintains a certain level of ambiguity in order to facilitate case resolution in courts and allow the utilization of different technologies as they evolve over time (Menikoff, 2002). The Act has cons too. It does not present an exclusive definition of death because it only includes the biological states of an individual who can be considered dead. On the other hand, it does not give the exact means of diagnosis to be used in determining whether brain, respiratory and circulatory functions have ceased working (Pellegrino, 2010). This creates a loophole for individuals to exploit and use different methods to declare individuals dead.
Conclusion
The Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) is a draft state law that provides a brief definition of death that reconciles the existing definitions of death. It is useful especially in the resolution of cases in the practice of law. The Act is ambiguous because it does not provide exact methods of diagnosis to declare death. This makes it easy to incorporate different technologies. However, it also creates a loophole for individuals to use various means that could be illegal to declare death.
References
Holland, S. (2013). Arguing About Bioethics. New York, NY: Routledge.
Menikoff, J. (2002). Law and Bioethics: An introduction. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Pellegrino, E. D. (2010). Controversies in the Determination of Death. New York, NY: DIANE Publishing.