Human beings have different definitions of what it means to die. Death and resurrection have been identified as fascinating topics to people across the globe. According to the video, biomedical death is the state where the brain of an individual is deemed as having irreversibly and entirely stopped to function as normal (Wion). The video explains social death as the condition experienced by people who have been segregated by their society. The main difference between biomedical and social death is that the former depends on how much entropy to a being’s cells can be reversed (Wion). Therefore, scientists explain that death is not a constant state. Biomedical death arises from the brain cells of an individual (Wion). On the other hand, the latter is based on how much legacy an individual has on the society, and hence social death originates from the other people and institutions surrounding the individual. Social death is not affected by the biomedical death since an individual may continue to live in the society even though they have been considered clinically dead (Wion). Also, an individual may be biomedically alive but socially dead. An example is the marginalization of various people in the society where their rights are not catered to, such as homeless people in some communities. Scientists explain that the independence between biomedical and social death is caused by the difference in the perceptions of death that human beings have (Wion). A person who is socially alive, but biomedically dead has a legacy that continues to live through the community even long after they are pronounced dead. That happens mostly for the influential members of the society whose memories are often with the living (Wion). Therefore, the perspectives of biomedical and social death create a rift between the views of the two types of death with people explaining death differently.
Patients’ right to die has been widely recognized and applied to those that have almost no chance to survive. Terry Schiavo’s right to die became a famous family feud in Florida as different members gave opinions regarding the disconnection of her feeding tube, which would ultimately lead to her death (The New York Times). Schiavo suffered from a cardiac arrest in 1990 at the age of twenty-six. The lack of breathing led to her damage of the brain parts that are responsible for functions of the body such as awareness and thinking, a condition which the doctors refer to as persistent vegetative state (PVS) (The New York Times). Schiavo was left with the brain stem that controls fundamental functions such as breathing. Mike Schiavo, her husband, petitioned to have her feeding tube removed as she had previously stated that she would not like to live that way (The New York Times). Schiavo was not dead before they removed her feeding tube. That is because the definition of biomedical death points out to the entire cessation of the brain’s function. The decision to remove it attracted many legal opinions with critics reporting that doing so would amount to murder. However, the court was unequivocal on Schiavo’s desire not to continue living like that (The New York Times). Schiavo should have decided what to do regarding the end of life transition. Her husband was to be in a position to implement her decision by providing the evidence for her wish to proceed with death after being on life support for many years (The New York Times). According to the video, the main distinction between the whole brain and higher brain death is that the former dictates that an individual is dead while the latter talks about the irreversible damage to the brain cells with the stem still being intact (The New York Times). The discussion of the two perspectives of biomedical death create differences between scientists and the public.