Beneficent Euthanasia

"The book is extremely well balanced: in each section there is usually an argument for and against the positions raised. It is a useful and well-thought-out text. It will make people think and discuss the problems raised, which I think is the editor's main purpose." -- Journal of Medical Ethics "... a volume that is to be commended for the clarity of its contributions, and for the depth it gains from its narrow focus. In places, this is a deeply moving, as well as closely argued, book." -- Times Literary Supplement "This work is an excellent historical and philosophical resource on a very difficult subject." -- Choice "This collection of well-written and carefully argued essays should be interesting, illuminating, and thought provoking for students, clinicians, and scholars." -- New England Journal of Medicine "This book is highly recommended..." -- Pharmacy Book Review "This is a well-balanced collection and the essays are of uniformly good quality.... very readable.... should be useful to anyone interested in this topic." -- Doody's Health Sciences Book Review Home Page "Physician-Assisted Suicide continues in the fine tradition of the Medical Ethics series published by Indiana University Press. Chapters are authored by outstanding scholars from both sides of the debate, providing a balanced, in-depth exploration of physician-assisted suicide along clinical, ethical, historical, and public policy dimensions. It is important reading for those who want to better understand the complex, multilayered issues that underlie this emotionally-laden topic." -- Timothy Quill, M.D. "Robert Weir has produced the finest collection of essays on physician assisted dying yet assembled in one volume. Physician assisted dying involves ethical and legal issues of enormous complexity. The deep strength of this anthology is its multi-disciplinary approach, which insightfully brings to bear interpretations from history, moral philosophy, religion, clinical practice, and law. This is a subject, much like abortion, that has divided America. This volume provides balanced scholarship that will help inform opinions from the hospital and hospice bedside to the halls of federal and state legislatures and courtrooms." -- Lawrence O. Gostin, Co-Director, Georgetown/Johns Hopkins Program on Law and Public Health "This book is a timely and valuable contribution to the debate. Highly recommended for academic collections." -- Library Journal These essays shed light and perspective on today's hotly contested issue of physician-assisted suicide. The authors were selected not only because of their experience and scholarship, but also because they provide readers with differing points of view on this complex subject -- and a potential moral quandary for us all.

CONTENTS.

Written in an accessible yet sophisticated style, The Individual and the Political Order, Third Edition is a text appropriate for students at all levels. This thoroughly revised edition challenges its readers to critically respond to a sustained defense of liberalism. Additions include examinations of communitarian and feminist critiques of liberalism, discussions of hate speech regulations, responses to the most recent work of Rawls, and a study of humanitarian intervention efforts in other countries. An expanded and updated bibliography as well as new study questions for each chapter make this an extremely useful text.

Now in an updated edition with fresh perspectives on high-profile ethical issues such as torture and same-sex marriage, this collection pairs cogently argued essays by leading philosophers with opposing views on fault-line public concerns. Revised and updated new edition with six new pairs of essays on prominent contemporary issues including torture and same-sex marriage, and a survey of theories of ethics by Stephen Darwall Leading philosophers tackle colleagues with opposing views in contrasting essays on core issues in applied ethics An ideal semester-length course text certain to generate vigorous discussion

Drawing on extensive data including news media reports and commentaries, documentaries, courts and court reports, films, websites, professional literature and government and non-government agencies, this book explores the 'Alzheimerisation' of the euthanasia debate, examining the shift in recent years in public attitudes towards the desirability and moral permissibility of euthanasia as an end-of-life 'solution' for people living with the disease - not just at its end stage, but also at earlier stages. With attention to media representations and public understandings of Alzheimer's disease, Alzheimer's Disease, Media Representations and the Politics of Euthanasia sheds light on the processes contributing to these changes in public opinion, investigating the drivers of vexed political debate surrounding the issue and examining the manner in which both sides of the euthanasia debate mobilise support, portray their opponents and make use of media technologies to frame the terms of discourse. Paving the way for a greater level of intellectual honesty with regard to an issue carrying significant policy implications, this book will be of interest to scholars of media and communication, social movements and political communication, and the sociology of health and medicine, as well as researchers and professionals in the fields of palliative and end of life care.

Theologians and theologically educated participants in discussions of bioethics have been placed on the defensive during recent years. The dominance of religious perspectives and theological voices that marked the emergence and establishment of "bioethics" in the late 1960s and 1970s has eroded steadily as philosophers, lawyers, and others have relativized their role and influ ence, at best, or dismissed it entirely, at worst. The secularization of bioethics, which has occurred for a variety of reasons, has prompted some prominent writers to reflect on what has been lost. Daniel Callahan, for example writes, " . . . whatever the ultimate truth status of religious perspectives, they have provided a way of looking at the world and understanding one's own life that has a fecundity and uniqueness not matched by philosophy, law, or political theory. Those of us who have lost our reli gious faith may be glad that we have discovered what we take to be the reality of things, but we can still recognize that we have also lost something of great value as well: the faith, vision, insights, and experience of whole peoples and traditions who, no less than we unbelievers, struggled to make sense of things. That those goods are part of a garment we no longer want to wear does not make their loss anything other than still a loss; and it is not a neglible one" ([2], p. 2).