11 found
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  1. Brain Death as the End of a Human Organism as a Self-moving Whole.Adam Omelianchuk - 2021 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 46 (5):530-560.
    The biophilosophic justification for the idea that “brain death” is death needs to support two claims: that what dies in human death is a human organism, not merely a psychological entity distinct from it; that total brain failure signifies the end of the human organism as a whole. Defenders of brain death typically assume without argument that the first claim is true and argue for the second by defending the “integrative unity” rationale. Yet the integrative unity rationale has fallen on (...)
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  2. How (not) to think of the ‘dead-donor’ rule.Adam Omelianchuk - 2018 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 39 (1):1-25.
    Although much has been written on the dead-donor rule in the last twenty-five years, scant attention has been paid to how it should be formulated, what its rationale is, and why it was accepted. The DDR can be formulated in terms of either a Don’t Kill rule or a Death Requirement, the former being historically rooted in absolutist ethics and the latter in a prudential policy aimed at securing trust in the transplant enterprise. I contend that the moral core of (...)
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  3. Dilemma for appeals to the moral significance of birth.Christopher A. Bobier & Adam Omelianchuk - 2020 - Journal of Medical Ethics (12).
    Giubilini and Minerva argue that the permissibility of abortion entails the permissibility of infanticide. Proponents of what we refer to as the Birth Strategy claim that there is a morally significant difference brought about at birth that accounts for our strong intuition that killing newborns is morally impermissible. We argue that strategy does not account for the moral intuition that late-term, non-therapeutic abortions are morally impermissible. Advocates of the Birth Strategy must either judge non-therapeutic abortions as impermissible in the later (...)
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  4. Looking for Signs of Life: A Christian Perspective on Defining and Determining Death.Adam Omelianchuk - forthcoming - Christian Bioethics.
    Looking to Scripture through the eyes of contemporary medical experience, I analyze the meaning of the criteria used for determining death, specifically in the light of Jesus’ final moments and the resurrection of the Shunammite’s son in 2 Kings, chapter 4. I argue that four theses are consistent with, and informed by, these passages that can help guide Christian belief and decision-making about how death is determined in the clinical context: (1) death is neither permanent nor irreversible; (2) something like (...)
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  5. Can double‐effect reasoning justify lethal organ donation?Adam Omelianchuk - 2022 - Bioethics 36 (6):648-654.
    The dead donor rule (DDR) prohibits retrieval protocols that would be lethal to the donor. Some argue that compliance with it can be maintained by satisfying the requirements of double‐effect reasoning (DER). If successful, one could support organ donation without reference to the definition of death while being faithful to an ethic that prohibits intentionally killing innocent human life. On the contrary, I argue that DER cannot make lethal organ donation compatible with the DDR, because there are plausible ways it (...)
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  6. The inviolateness of life and equal protection: a defense of the dead-donor rule.Adam Omelianchuk - 2022 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 43 (1):1-27.
    There are increasing calls for rejecting the ‘dead donor’ rule and permitting ‘organ donation euthanasia’ in organ transplantation. I argue that the fundamental problem with this proposal is that it would bestow more worth on the organs than the donor who has them. What is at stake is the basis of human equality, which, I argue, should be based on an ineliminable dignity that each of us has in virtue of having a rational nature. To allow mortal harvesting would be (...)
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  7. In defense of xenotransplantation research: Because of, not in spite of, animal welfare concerns.Christopher Bobier, Daniel Rodger, Daniel J. Hurst & Adam Omelianchuk - forthcoming - Xenotransplantation.
    It is envisioned that one day xenotransplantation will bring about a future where transplantable organs can be safely and efficiently grown in transgenic pigs to help meet the global organ shortage. While recent advances have brought this future closer, worries remain about whether it will be beneficial overall. The unique challenges and risks posed to humans that arise from transplanting across the species barrier, in addition to the costs borne by non-human animals, has led some to question the value of (...)
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  8. ‘Total disability’ and the wrongness of killing.Adam Omelianchuk - 2015 - Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (8):661-662.
    Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Franklin G Miller recently argued that the wrongness of killing is best explained by the harm that comes to the victim, and that ‘total disability’ best explains the nature of this harm. Hence, killing patients who are already totally disabled is not wrong. I maintain that their notion of total disability is ambiguous and that they beg the question with respect to whether there are abilities left over that remain relevant for the goods of personhood and human (...)
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  9. Ontologically Grounded Subordination.Adam Omelianchuk - 2011 - Philosophia Christi 13 (1):169-180.
    In a recent article Steven Cowan defended the claim that female subordination and male authority are merely functional differences. Drawing insights from Natural Law, I argue that complementarianism typically speaks of these as proper functions of male and female designs, thus making men and women metaphysically unequal in being. Furthermore, I maintain that the function "serving as a means to an end" is less valuable than the function "having the authority to direct the end." Hence, Cowan fails to defeat the (...)
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  10. Review of When Death Becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon. [REVIEW]Adam Omelianchuk - 2022 - Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 32 (1):8-12.
    Joshua Mezrich is a practicing transplant surgeon who draws on his experiences, and those of his patients, to provide a "here's where we're at" moment in the story of transplant medicine. In so doing, he explains what it is like to practice while telling the stories of his patients, donors, and the pioneering surgeons who persisted in the face of failure to make what Mezrich does a work of healing. Written for a popular audience, When Death Becomes Life is perhaps (...)
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  11. The New Definitions of Death for Organ Donation: A Multidisciplinary Analysis from the Perspective of Christian Ethics by Doyen Nguyen. [REVIEW]Adam Omelianchuk - 2021 - The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 21 (1):180-182.
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