You are in the hospital waiting room for intensive care patients. Your (mate, mother, father, child — choose your option), for whom you are the legal representative to make decisions in a situation where this person is comatose, is in the intensive care unit. There was a tragic car wreck and this person was subjected to major trauma and has been on life support for two weeks. This person is no longer under sedation and has not been for four days, which means the lack of any upper, cognitive brain activity is not the result of sedation from drugs. This person is unable to breathe on his/her own. The heart is still beating, but the physicians have explained that this can happen even though the upper brain is effectively dead, namely, the part of the brain where cognition (the personality) resides. This person shows no response and would have to be fed by a tube if kept “alive” in this state. The physicians are recommending that the breathing support be suspended/ceased, encouraging you and your family to consult with your minister(s) for advice and counsel. What are your thoughts on this? : 1. Study carefully the instructor’s lesson for week 12 on bioethics and medical ethics before doing this case study, especially the portions on defining death. 2. For people of faith, this case study is, in part, an effort to synchronize a religious definition of death with a scientific definition of death, which can be difficult, because the two definitions are using different means of measurement and a different language. However, from the Bible you might study Genesis 2:7, Ecclesiastes 12:7, Matthew 10:28, 2 Corinthians 5:8, and James 2:26.