upon ones physical being making the questions associated with organ donation particularly difficult to make, for some individuals. So much of our definitions of self revolve around what we look like and feel like, according to the confines of our body and despite contrary evidence that when one is brain dead or in a persistent vegetative state that the body is still connected to the mind (or soul in spiritual terms). In the determination of such an issue one must be in a psychological state to make a moral decision, based upon their own individual identity, acknowledging, if you will, that the body and the mind are separated when death occurs and that harm to one's body is not equivalent to harm of one's self, in the case of death. This is a psychological place where few people tread, let alone make bold decisions, as it is highly personal and frighteningly mortal to most people.
             Furthermore, there have also been a few recent cases where people in such vegetative states have begun to respond to stimulus and some have even woken from the state and begun to interact with their environment after years as vegetables. Consider the Coons case in New York state, where a woman previously diagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state regained consciousness and demonstrated some communication as well as some ability to eat, just days after a court had granted her family to order her feeding tube, on which she had been dependant on for four months and is still dependant on after she "woke up" removed. (Steinbock, 1989, pg. 14-17) It is clear from countless cases, such as Coons, even some where individuals regain consciousness after years that the science of brain activity diagnosis is not an exact one, and many people consider this information when making he decision to be organ donors or allow family members diagnosed with PVS and or brain death to have organs harvested for transplant. This is excluding religious or spir...