> basic medical definition of dead, which is basically no heartbeat
This is an extremely reductive statement. There is no unified medical definition of death, precisely because it's a highly controversial topic.
Closest to what you're trying to say is UDDA (which, ironically, is currently being revised), and it explicitly mentions brain death: "An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead."
This is an extremely reductive statement. There is no unified medical definition of death, precisely because it's a highly controversial topic.
Closest to what you're trying to say is UDDA (which, ironically, is currently being revised), and it explicitly mentions brain death: "An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Determination_of_Death...