Mechanical life support is the technical maintenance of the bodily life functions of a person by medical devices — for instance a heart-lung machine or a ventilator.
In the case of irreversible loss of brain function, mechanical life support is a necessary but not sufficient condition for continued life: necessary, because without it certain death follows; not sufficient, because even with mechanical support the organism may fail.
As a form of medical care, it is an interpersonal relation: the relationship between caregiver and patient is subject to the Personalist Norm. The decision concerning mechanical life support directly affects the right to life of the person concerned and their inalienable dignity.
The person who is kept alive by mechanical life support remains, in the full sense, a human person. Their personhood in the First Dimension is untouched — what is affected is the deutera energeia, not the prote energeia.
Ontological classification
Superordinate concepts: Medical Care, Interpersonal Relation
Ontological relations:
- is kept alive by: Human Person is kept alive by Mechanical Life Support
- subform: Heart-Lung Machine
Chapter assignment: Chapter 4: What is human personhood? (German)
See also
- Irreversible Loss of Brain Function
- Heart-Lung Machine
- Palliative Care
- Death
- Right to Life
- Personhood
- Dignity
- Phases of Dying
- Donation after Circulatory Death
- Precautionary Principle
- Thomas Aquinas
- Benedict XVI
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology. Bexten 2017, pp. 195 ff. (personhood in irreversible loss of brain function).