This document, along with your donor card, may help ensure that your wishes will be honored. In any event, tell your family that you want to become a donor in the event of your death. Brain death occurs when a person has an irreversible, catastrophic brain injury which causes all brain activity to stop permanently. In such cases, the heart and lungs can continue to function if artificial life-support machines are used. However, these functions also will cease when the machines are discontinued.
Brain death is an accepted medical, ethical, and legal principle.
The standards for determining that someone is brain dead are strict. Tissue and bone may be useable in either type of death. Organs, however, are useable only in cases where brain death occurs. Transplantation is consistent with the life preserving traditions of these faiths. However, if you have any doubts, you should discuss them with your spiritual leader.