Ethics: A Balancing Act of Life and Death

New uses of fetuses and brain-absent babies trouble doctors

After years of research, doctors feel they are ready to try to alleviate many incurable conditions, ranging from congenital heart defects to degenerative nerve diseases, through the transplanting of organs and tissues. Their pioneering triumphs, however, have created a Faustian dilemma. Each year in the U.S. hundreds of infants die who could have been saved by a new heart; literally millions of people with diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's may eventually benefit from tissue implants. Should physicians manipulate the definitions of life and death to meet this growing demand for donor tissue? The question is taking on a new immediacy as...

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