In two separate criminal cases, defendants had been convicted of manslaughter in the shooting deaths of victims whose families had donated their organs for transplantation after they had been declared brain dead. The New York Court of Appeals affirmed both lower court decisions, holding that the term “death” as used in state statutes encompasses cessation of functioning of the entire brain even if the heartbeat and breathing are being sustained by artificial means and that, if victims are properly diagnosed as dead, no subsequent medical procedure such as organ removal can be deemed a cause of death.

This article evaluates the textual variations of Talmud Yoma 85a concerning the sign of life and death. While the standard printed edition of the Talmud, records the debate as between checking the nostrils (respiration) and the heart (for heartbeat) most manuscripts including, the Talmud Yerushalmi, record the debate as between the nostrils and the navel.

Article about Moshiko.

This discusses non-economics apsects

This study examined the population of a large hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit to determine the potential importance of organ donation from donors without heartbeats. Children in the intensive care unit tend to be sicker than their adult counterparts. They have a higher rate of severe neurological damage and die faster when removed from life support. The study was prompted by the request of two families to donate their children’s organs though no formal program existed at the time of publication. Researchers found that routine use of non-heart-beating donation could increase the donor pool by an estimated 42% at their center. These findings demonstrate that pediatric donors without heartbeats would be ideal candidates for organ donation and call for the establishment of pediatric non-heart-beating criteria.