Anencephaly: Selected Medical Aspects

Several elements of anencephaly are discussed: problems of diagnosis, its declining prevalence and the effect of prenatal screening and subsequent abortion, the extent of neurological functioning and consciousness of anencephalic infants, their life span and cause of death, and the utility of organs for transplantation. The author concludes that projections of the extremely small number of infants who will benefit from such transplants ten years from now should reduce the effort expended in modifying diagnostic criteria for brain death, changing statutory definitions of death, or relaxing fundamental principles of transplantation ethics in order to obtain organs from anencephalic infants.