{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,11]],"date-time":"2026-08-11T12:16:29Z","timestamp":1786450589090,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":39,"publisher":"Oxford University Press (OUP)","issue":"1","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,1,10]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>Critics of organ donation after circulatory death (DCD) argue that, even if donors are past the point of autoresuscitation, they have not satisfied the \u201cirreversibility\u201d requirement in the circulatory and respiratory criteria for determining death, since their circulation and respiration could be artificially restored. Thus, removing their vital organs violates the \u201cdead-donor\u201d rule. I defend DCD donation against this criticism. I argue that practical medical-ethical considerations, including respect for do-not-resuscitate orders, support interpreting \u201cirreversibility\u201d to mean permanent cessation of circulation and respiration. Assuming a consciousness-related formulation of human death, I then argue that the loss of circulation and respiration is significant, because it leads to the permanent loss of consciousness and thus to the death of the human person. The DNR request by an organ donor should thus be interpreted to mean \u201cdo not restore to consciousness.\u201d Finally, I respond to an objection that if \u201cirreversibility\u201d has a medical-ethical meaning, it would entail the absurd possibility that one of two individuals in the same physical state could be alive and the other dead\u2014an implication that some think is inconsistent with understanding death as an objective biological state of the organism. I argue that advances in medical technology have created phenomena that challenge the assumption that human death can be understood in strictly biological terms. I argue that ethical and ontological considerations about our nature bear on the definition and determination of death and thus on the permissibility of DCD.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/jmp\/jhz030","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,10,2]],"date-time":"2019-10-02T19:37:37Z","timestamp":1570045057000},"page":"42-60","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":22,"title":["Why DCD Donors Are Dead"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"45","author":[{"given":"John P","family":"Lizza","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, Pennsylvania, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,12,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"2020011010370501400_CIT0001","article-title":"The Nicomachean Ethics. Rev. ed. Trans. D. 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