1. After exploring the sociological literature on death and dying, explore and argue for or against one of the following statements:
b. Death and dying are subjected to and defined by the clinical gaze.

Euphemism and grandiloquence are core mechanisms employed in the theoretical and authoritative discourses surrounding the issues and definitions of death, as seen with the propositions put forward by the British Medical Association (BMA 2003). The BMA’s ideas allude to a suggestion that death could be redefined and that ‘Elective Ventilation’ (a prohibited medical procedure on the outer frontiers of legality and morality) might become a ‘new’ status of the dead and dying. Other articles take this presumption further, by questioning whether as individuals, society should legally be bound to ‘opt out’ rather than ‘opt in’ of this innovative condition; meaning if our bodies befall fatal injuries there is a presumption that they instantly become the assets of the medical institution (Wilkinson 2012). An alternative belief is being presented, that our ethical and moral concerns should lay with the future recipient of our assumedly ‘redundant’ organs. Already some European states such as Wales are considering backing such a proposal (Wales News 2012). Actively delaying death or maintaining a body to increase organ donation is illegal as the interests of the patient are not paramount. Is the idea of Elective ventilation the ultimate scenario in defining death through a clinical gaze? Furthermore, does organ donation within the context of elective ventilation, not epitomize a dehumanizing medical separation of the patient's body from the patient's person? Does mind-body dualism, in this situation create a reductive view of humanity which reduces people to the sum total of their body parts? These questions will be analyzed within a Foucauldian framework which draws primarily on his work ‘The Birth of the Clinic’ (Foucault 1973).

Death was once considered finite, the ultimate restriction, but with biomedical advancements however it is now possible to have a living body, but be termed clinically dead. The definition of death prior to the era of modernity had always been contained within the bastion of church and religion. This hypothesis is in accordance with Foucault’s theories of power. Foucault saw history as a struggle of discourses which makes possible modes of interpretation, but does not make their acceptance any more legitimate or authoritative than those which went previously (Turner 1993:131). Since the enlightenment there has been a secular erosion of religious knowledge and the meaning of death and dying has embraced fluidity like never before. Innovative uses of vocabulary, terminology and discourse to depict illness ,the body and it’s condition has had the effect of estranging many within society, simultaneously enabling the medical fraternity a position of supreme authority. Elective ventilation is a paradigm of that hypothesis. If the all powerful ‘medical gaze’ and ‘watchful eye’ of supervision, of which Foucault talks of, is sanctioned to reclassify death, then there is a clear demonstration that the boundaries of our understanding of mortality has been broadened. In order for the clinical gaze to become effectual with regards to this issue the doctor needs to develop a political consciousness (Foucault 1973:12-13) and crucially attain governmental legitimacy, it is at this point that it is possible to see how the “ fight back against disease must begin with a war against bad government." “Man will be totally and definitively cured only if he is first liberated...” (Foucault1973:38). In this instance man’s liberation comes in the plentiful supply of replacement organs which must be regulated and commodified, whilst being sustained within a supernatural state of existence; that being elective ventilation which plays into a modern myth of immortality (Foucault1973:38).
Elective ventilation has enabled societies capacity to become emotionally uncoupled to both the living and the dead body and has subsequently altered our moral perceptive, it is viable to consider these issues through the Foucauldian Ethics of Death; “A human being turns him, or herself into a subject” (Prado 2003, Foucault, et. al. 1983: 208–209). Ethics are how we “transform” and “modify” ourselves “to attain a certain state of perfection” (Foucault 1997 : 175-184). As the body takes on the role of a commodity, even Foucault may have scarcely imagined to what extent mind body dualism may have taken, biopolitical utilization has undermined the connection society traditionally enjoyed with the body and mind “the self’s relationship to itself” (Prado 2003, Davidson:1986: 221). Foucault created the idiom “Medical Gaze “to extenuate the dehumanizing medical division of the patient's body from the patient's self or sense of identity. Although less popular with modern academic scholars, it is almost possible to trace these modern ideas regarding the implications of organ donation from Thomas Huxley’s ardent ideas of epiphenomenalism; that being humans are entirely biological organisms, the fiscal world has causal closure and that the organ of thought is the brain (a physical object) this medicalized view saw the body as an organic machine and that thoughts and spirituality were simply a by-product or ‘epiphenomenon’ (Armstrong 1999: 41-45). Huxley’s view was an undeveloped explanation; nevertheless this Darwinian perspective is at the heart of the medical profession and thus the medical gaze.

For some members of society; such as Joyce robins of Patient Concern ( a UK medical lobby group), any law which potentially forces presumed consent and the ramifications of elective ventilation, become part of an over dominant medical and governmental power imbalance (Bernman 2008:59).The re classification of death is at the theoretical heart of any dialogue surrounding death and dying and this discourse has witnessed a collision of power brokers from theologians to medical specialists all willing to pledge their assumed knowledge to the judgment. Within the medical gaze it would appear that the stakes are high and the implications may possibly be the disintegration of the embodied self .Death and dying are gradually more subjected to and defined by the clinical gaze. When writing on the supremacy of medical dominance Marshall Perron concisely expressed “more and more, we are going to die when someone makes the decision that we are going to die” (Prado 2003:207, Mydans 1997). At the point in which the physicians and clinics were able to keep people peculiarly alive by way of sophisticated equipment and exclusive knowledge, the definition of death and dying was removed from a cultural and societal level. “In eighteenth century medical thought death was both the absolute fact and the most relative phenomenon, it was the end of life and it was in its nature to be fatal....with death the limit had been reached (Foucault1973:172), In the 21st century, traditional notions of death appear to no longer be an absolute fact, yet increasingly represent more than the end of life. In the words of Ewart “The body has turned out to be indivisible from any other consumable within the international market” (Ewart 2011).

References
Armstrong, D. M. (1999). The mind - body problem: An opinionated introduction . Boulder [u.a.: Westview Press.
Bernman. (2008). Paper 123-1 session 2007-2008. In Increasing the supply of donor organs within the European Union: 17th report of session 2007-08 . London: Stationery Office.
BMA. (2003, December 13). Increasing the number of donors. British Medical Association. Retrieved March 28, 2012, from http://www.bma.org.uk/ethics/organ_transplantation_donation/Organdonation21st.jsp?page=3#.T3L3p2Egc4l
Davidson, A. (1986). Archaeology, genealogy, ethics. In D. C. Hoy (Ed.), Foucault: A critical reader . New York: Basil Blackwell.

Dreyfus, H. L., Rabinow, P., & Foucault, M. (1983). Michel Foucault, beyond structuralism and hermeneutics . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ewart, C. (2011, June 06). “Neoliberalism and Disability” Kidneys to Go: Dis-Ordering the Body in a Pretty Dirty Economy. Address presented at Simon Fraser University SDS Conference 2011.
Foucault, M. (1973). The birth of the clinic; an archaeology of medical perception. New York: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (1997). Sexuality and solitude. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics: Subjectivity and truth . New York: Penguin.
Mydans, S. (1997, February 2). Assisted suicide: Australia faces a grim reality. The New York Times.
Prado, C. (2003). Foucauldian Ethics and Elective Death. Journal of Medical Humanities,, 24(3-4), winter, 203-210.
Turner, B. S. (1993). Max Weber: From history to modernity . London: Routledge.
Wales News. (2012, March 21). Campaigners in Bid to Change Law on Organ Donation in Wales. Retrieved March 28, 2012, from http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2012/03/21/campaigners-in-bid-to-change-law-on-organ-donation-in-wales-91466-30593203/
Wilkinson, D. (2012, February 12). BMJ Group blogs. Journal of Medical Ethics Blog. Retrieved March 28, 2012, from http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2012/02/16/obligatory-ventilation-why-elective-ventilation-should-not-be-elective/
Wilkinson, D. (2012, February 15). BMJ Group blogs. Journal of Medical Ethics Blog. Retrieved March 28, 2012, from http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2012/02/16/obligatory-ventilation-why-elective-ventilation-should-not-be-elective/