A husband and wife are gravely ill. Rather than living in pain, they choose to end their lives, and they turn to their son for help. Despite the legal risks and emotional turmoil it is sure to cause him, he agrees--and ultimately performs an act of love more difficult than any other. The Last Goodnights provides a unique and unflinching look deep inside the reality of one of the most galvanizing issues of our time: assisted suicide. Told with bare honesty, John West's account of the deaths of two brave people is both gritty and loving, frightening and illuminating. It also offers a powerful testament to the act of death by choice, and reveals all the reasons why end-of-life issues are far too personal for government intrusion. Intimately told, The Last Goodnights points out the unnecessary pain and suffering that are often forced upon dying people and their families, and honors the choice to live or die with purpose and dignity. In the end, this story is not just about death--it is also about love, courage, and autonomy.

Michael J. Hyde's pathbreaking study considers the relationship between the phenomenon of conscience and the practice of rhetoric as it relates to one of the most controversial issues of our time-euthanasia. Hyde investigates how the practice of rhetoric becomes a voice of conscience and influences the moral standards of individuals and communities. In doing so, he offers the first extensive treatment of Martin Heidegger's and Emmanuel Levinas's philosophical investigations of conscience and an in-depth analysis of the justifiability and social acceptability of euthanasia. Hyde establishes the theoretical basis of his study by discussing and critically assessing the phenomenological theories of conscience set forth in the works of the two philosophers. To illustrate in concrete terms how the relationship between the call of conscience and the practice of rhetoric shows itself in everyday existence, Hyde surveys the moral discourse that informs ongoing debates over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. He focuses on a cluster of related topics that emerge from his discussion of the work of Heidegger and Levinas, including the phenomena of deconstruction and acknowledgment, emotion and the reconstructive power of language, and the discursive creation of heroes. Through these investigations Hyde accounts for some of the key definitions, arguments, and narratives that contribute to the rhetoric of the euthanasia debate, especially as the discussion has evolved since the late 1980s.

Controversy about the morality of euthanasia and assisted suicide and their legalisation has been running for over a generation, and it shows no sign of flagging. The main arguments for and against are widely familiar, yet the horizon yields no sign of any approaching resolution. Progress can still be made by careful examination of the opposing fronts and that is the service that this book performs. Drawing ecumenically on both theological and philosophical resources, it pioneers an original way to a mature judgement by tackling the three basic questions that the debate raises: What is it that makes human life valuable? Can it ever be moral to intend to kill someone? And how much should we fear the wider, social effects of legalising euthanasia or assisted suicide?

There are few issues more divisive than what has become known as "the right to die." One camp upholds "death with dignity," regarding the terminally ill as autonomous beings capable of forming their own judgment on the timing and process of dying. The other camp advocates "sanctity of life," regarding life as intrinsically valuable, and believes that it should be sustained for as long as possible. Is there a right answer? Raphael Cohen-Almagor takes a balanced approach in analyzing this emotionally charged debate, viewing the dispute from public policy and international perspectives. His study is an interdisciplinary, compelling study in medicine, law, religion, and ethics. With a comprehensive look at the troubling question of whether physician-assisted suicide should be allowed, Cohen-Almagor delineates a distinction between active and passive euthanasia and discusses legal measures that have been invoked in the United States and abroad. He outlines reasons why nonblood relatives should be given a role in deciding a patient's last wishes. As he examines euthanasia policies in the Netherlands and the 1994 Oregon Death with Dignity Act, the author suggests amendments and finally makes a circumscribed plea for voluntary physician-assisted suicide. Raphael Cohen-Almagor has been the Fulbright-Yitzhak Rabin Scholar and a visiting professor at UCLA School of Law and department of communication. He is chairperson of library and information studies at the University of Haifa, and the author of The Boundaries of Liberty and Tolerance, Speech, Media and Ethics: The Limits of Free Expression, and Euthanasia in the Netherlands.

This book is written for all those who are concerned about how their life may end-and who wish to die without unnecessary suffering. Dr. Charles F. McKhann discusses many aspects of physician-assisted dying and explains why he thinks it should be made legally available under certain circumstances. Dr. McKhann, a specialist in cancer surgery, has conducted in-depth interviews with people who were dying from a variety of illnesses and with the physicians who cared for them. Drawing on these interviews and on his own experiences as a physician, he looks at the dying process as it is encountered in painful and debilitating diseases and at the needs of patients and their families. Dr. McKhann presents the case for rational suicide, comparing a failed suicide attempt in the United States with a planned death in the Netherlands and illustrating the differences in approach and attitudes. He explains the ways in which physician assistance is already taking place and considers the physician`s personal and professional concerns. And he reflects on relevant religious, moral, legal, and public-policy issues that are currently so widely debated. His thought-provoking book is a valuable resource not only for the general public but also for compassionate physicians who attend people with fatal diseases and for lawmakers who strive for understanding and courage in dealing with this new challenge.

The issue of physician-assisted death is now firmly on the American public agenda. Already legal in five states, it is the subject of intense public opinion battles across the country. Driven by an increasingly aging population, and a baby boom generation just starting to enter its senior years, the issue is not going to go away anytime soon. In Physician-Assited Death L.W. Sumner equips readers with everything they need to know to take a reasoned and informed position in this important debate. The book provides needed context for the debate by situating physician-assisted death within the wider framework of end-of-life care and explaining why the movement to legalize it now enjoys such strong public support. It also reviews that movement's successes to date, beginning in Oregon in 1994 and now extending to eleven jurisdictions across three continents. Like abortion, physician-assisted death is ethically controversial and the subject of passionately held opinions. The central chapters of the book review the main arguments utilized by both sides of the controversy: on the one hand, appeals to patient autonomy and the relief of suffering, on the other the claim that taking active steps to hasten death inevitably violates the sanctity of life. The book then explores both the case in favor of legalization and the case against, focusing in the latter instance on the risk of abuse and the possibility of slippery slopes. In this context the experience of jurisdictions that have already taken the step of legalization is carefully reviewed to see what lessons might be extracted from it. It then identifies some further issues that lie beyond the boundaries of the current debate but will have to be faced sometime down the road: euthanasia for patients who are permanently unconscious or have become seriously demented and for severely compromised newborns. The book concludes by considering the various possible routes to legalization, both political and judicial. Readers will then be prepared to decide for themselves just where they stand when they confront the issue both in their own jurisdiction and in their own lives.

In 1974 the Church of England published a groundbreaking report on euthanasia. Considered by many Christians to be one of the key texts on the subject, it has now been revised and updated with important new additions and commentaries. On Dying Well investigates moral, theological, clinical and legal arguments for and against voluntary euthanasia. It presents arguments on both sides and considers real cases, thereby locating the issues in their clinical context. The report is both intellectually robust and sensitive to the realities of death. On Dying Well is, therefore, as much a contribution to the debate on euthanasia today as it was 25 years ago. The report, while recognising that there may be exceptional cases demanding special decisions, nevertheless concludes that the case for legalising voluntary euthanasia is not one that can be supported. The conclusions are satisfactory because they emerge from careful examination of the issues and reasoned arguments. Anyone who is concerned about euthanasia, or who would like to deepen their own reflections on the subject, should read On Dying Well.

Doctors, Patients, and Assisted Suicide
Revised and Updated Edition

A psychiatrist and world-famous authority on suicide offers a persuasive argument against legalizing assisted suicide in the United States.

Few issues set off such impassioned debate as euthanasia and assisted suicide, but until now, no one has shown what their practice means in the actual experience of patients, doctors, and families.

Herbert Hendin has studied such experience in the United States and also in the Netherlands, where assisted suicide and euthanasia are accepted. Using interviews with leading medical and legal architects of Dutch practices, and evaluating actual cases, Dr. Hendin addresses the difficult questions: Who actually makes the decision that a patient will die? How do the needs and character of family, friends, and doctors affect the choice? Throughout the book and in his conclusion, Dr. Hendin shows what we can do to find better options for those facing the final phase of life.

• "A powerful contribution to this debate."--Charles E. Rosenberg, New York Times Book Review
• "Closely reasoned and exhaustively researched. . . . Hendin's objections . . . carry a bone-chilling conviction."--Washington Post Book World
• "[An] important and alarming report." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The proliferation of life-prolonging technology in recent years has made the controversy over the "right to die" and physician-assisted suicide one of the most explosive medical and ethical issues of our day. Dr. Jack Kevorkian's "suicide machine" has commanded front-page coverage for several years, while in 1994 Oregon passed a measure allowing the terminally ill to obtain lethal prescriptions for suicide, and other states have placed similar proposals on their ballots.

Arguing Euthanasia brings together for the first time an impressive array of viewpoints from both sides of this emotionally charged question as well as voices from the gravely ill and their loved ones. Beginning with a selection of pieces from the New England Journal of Medicine, where the debate was ignited in 1988, Arguing Euthanasia features essays by such outspoken advocates of active euthanasia as Timothy Quill and Sidney Hook, and important social critics and commentators such as Nat Hentoff, Leon R. Kass, and Ronald Dworkin.

As they probe the legal and ethical issues at the heart of physician-assisted suicide, these essays offer invaluable insights not only for those caring for the terminally ill but for anyone concerned with the deeper philosophical conflict between enduring life-oriented values and personal dignity that lies at the heart of this controversy.

"For me Dr. Quill is a hero—a physician with a head and a heart." —Betty Rollin, author of Last Wish

This book looks squarely at how patients can make crucial decisions and take charge of the end of their lives. This book is a resource for anyone who fears unnecessary suffering and excessive medical intervention at that point. It helps readers think through and then complete advance directives, and also to take a more active role when they or a family member becomes terminally ill. Through real-life stories and his own experience, Dr. Quill explores what measures a patient can choose to prolong life and how to forgo such measures if they begin to extend a painful death, choosing instead approaches such as comfort care which emphasize quality more than quantity of life. Finally, Dr. Quill speaks out on physician-assisted suicide and why he helped a long-term patient of his, stricken with leukemia, to take her life when her suffering became intolerable. He asks for regulation, rather than denial, knowing that many patients and doctors ofen face this question at times of crisis.

"This book, written from the heart, is compassionate and emphatic. It makes a compelling argument for legalizing physician-assisted suicide." —D. W. Molloy, M.D., New England Journal of Medicine

"This is a work of enormous sensitivity, clarity, and caring. . . . It is essential reading for all those wishing to remain in control of their lives to the end." —Mack Lipkin, Jr., M.D., president, American Academy on Physician and Patient

"Quill's article . . . shocked the world . . . and caused him a great deal of persecution. This book eloquently explains his action and his beliefs." —Ann Waldron, Washington Post

"Quill's perceptive, emphatic exploration will help readers to make informed decisions in tragic situations." —Publishers Weekly

"A bold approach to medicine." —Gary. C. Rummier, Arizona Daily Star

For many years Dr. Kevorkian was at the center of the red-hot debate over physician-assisted suicide. The inventor of the "suicide machine" stirred up both admiration and controversy. His "Deaths with Dignity" won him the accolades of the pro-choice movement. Other groups, like Operation Rescue, the AMA, the Hemlock Society, and especially the Michigan State Legislature, insisted that Kevorkian had gone too far. His much-publicized campaign to assist the terminally ill to commit suicide eventually led to his prosecution and imprisonment.
In Prescription: Medicide, the famed "suicide doctor" talks about why he was so committed to his struggle. He addresses the need to assist the terminally ill to die, how death row inmates should be allowed to donate organs after their deaths, and the need for medical reform to create a rational program of dignified, humane, beneficial planned death.

This book is an attempt to deal with the basic issues that surround the euthanasia debate. The subject is important, controversial, and complex, calling for sensitivity to the realities of death and dying, a clear understanding of one's Christian faith and its implications for this significant dimension of human existence, conceptual and analytical skills to deftly make the requisite distinctions along the way, and logical rigor to enable one to draw the appropriate conclusions.

People in serious illness, crises, suffering and grief are particularly vulnerable in their reliance on the support and help of others. Therefore, all full-time and voluntary workers involved should always reflect ethically on their offers and their actions towards them in order not to "run over" them in their dependency, not to exploit them or even to enrich themselves with them. It is always important to respect the values of the sick, suffering person, to respect his dignity. Practiced ethics lead to pausing in everyday life and then to systematic, discursive reflection on the often opposing values of care and autonomy. Doing no additional damage to sufferers should be taken for granted, but everyone knows counterexamples. Special ethical challenges arise in the treatment and support of suffering people with regard to fairness in the distribution of resources, for example with people from other cultures, with seriously ill people whose hope is to be supported without senseless (possibly self-paid) treatment attempts, as well in observing the wishes of the dying. And how does the volunteer companion deal with cross-border behavior in interaction? What ethical considerations are important when advising believers of other religions? This booklet is dedicated to the importance of ethics in counseling, support and treatment of suffering people.

In Western thought, suicide has evolved from sin to sin-and-crime, to crime, to mental illness, and to semilegal act. A legal act is one we are free to think and speak about and plan and perform, without penalty by agents of the state. While dying voluntarily is ostensibly legal, suicide attempts and even suicidal thoughts are routinely punished by incarceration in a psychiatric institution. Although many people believe the prevention of suicide is one of the duties the modern state owes its citizens, Szasz argues that suicide is a basic human right and that the lengths to which the medical industry goes to prevent it represent a deprivation of that right. Drawing on his general theory of the myth of mental illness, Szasz makes a compelling case that the voluntary termination of one's own life is the result of a decision, not a disease. He presents an in-depth examination and critique of contemporary antisuicide policies, which are based on the notion that voluntary death is a mental health problem, and systematically lays out the dehumanizing consequences of psychiatrizing suicide prevention. If suicide be deemed a problem, it is not a medical problem. Managing it as if it were a disease, or the result of a disease, will succeed only in debasing medicine and corrupting the law. Pretending to be the pride of medicine, psychiatry is its shame.

This book argues against the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia and/or physician-assisted suicide on the ground that, even if they were ethically defensible in certain 'hard cases', neither could be effectively controlled by law. It maintains that the experience of legalisation in the Netherlands, Belgium and Oregon lends support to the two 'slippery slope' arguments against legalisation, the 'empirical' and the 'logical'. The empirical argument challenges the feasibility of drafting and enforcing adequate safeguards against abuse and mistake; the logical argument shows that acceptance of the case for euthanasia in the case of suffering patients who request it logically involves acceptance of euthanasia for suffering patients who are unable to request it, such as infants and those with advanced dementia.

How veterinarians and pet owners manage companion animal euthanasia.

A SUNDAY TIMES, NEW STATESMAN AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Immensely powerful . . . her investigation of this terrible illness is sensitive and compelling' Sunday Times After her own father's death from dementia, the writer and campaigner Nicci Gerrard set out to explore the illness that now touches millions of us, yet which we still struggle to speak about. What does dementia mean, for those who live with it, and those who care for them? This truthful, humane book is an attempt to understand. It is filled with stories, both moving and optimistic: from those living with dementia to those planning the end of life, from the scientists unlocking the mysteries of the brain to the therapists using art and music to enrich the lives of sufferers, from the campaigners battling for greater compassion in care to the families trying to make sense of this 'incomprehensible de-creation of the self'.

Offering a candid behind-the-scenes look at small-animal veterinary practices, "Blue Juice" explores the emotional and ethical conflicts involved in providing a good death for companion animals. Patricia Morris presents a nuanced ethnographic account of how veterinarians manage patient care and client relations when their responsibility shifts from saving an animal's life to negotiating a decision to end it.
Using her own experiences and observations in veterinary settings as well as the voices of seasoned and novice vets, Morris reveals how veterinarians think about euthanasia and why this dirty work often precipitates burnout, moral quandaries, and even tense or emotional interactions with clients. Closely observing these interactions, Morris illuminates the ways in which euthanasia reflects deep and unresolved tension in human-animal relationships.
"Blue Juice" seeks to understand how practitioners, charged with the difficult task of balancing the interests of animals and their humans, deal with the responsibility of ending their patients' lives.

Assisted Dying is an ethnographically based murder mystery that uses the unexplained deaths of elderly people on FloridaOs Gold Coast as a way of examining American cultural values. Diversity, immigration and the American Dream, aging, retirement, death, and dying are just some of the issues that are illuminated. Cultural anthropologist Julie Norman is drawn deeper into the mystery when her aunt becomes the latest victim. JulieOs ethnographic methodology and cultural perspectives, her previous involvement in a murder case recounted in The Gift of a Bride: A Tale of Anthropology, Matrimony and Murder, along with the insights of Detective Mike Cardella and the Miami police department, all help to solve the mystery. Assisted Dying engages students as a supplementary text to apply concepts from the social sciences, literature, and communications to issues of current interest in the United States and beyond. The novel is part of a popular movement toward using alternative and creative forms to convey academic information and concepts in the classroom. To further this aim, the social and cultural content of each chapter is extended in a bibliographic essay and discussion questions. This book will be welcomed in courses on cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, sociology, gerontology, American studies, psychology, gender, ethnic studies, and other social sciences.

Death duties are now only a minor source of revenue to the British Exchequer (about 1.5 per cent of Inland Revenue receipts) and they now have few committed advocates. Nevertheless they persist, mainly because of inertia. Dr Bracewell-Milnes analyses the traditional criticism of death duties and adds some novel arguments based on the concept of saving in perpetuity -- saving which is never drawn down, whether or not it was initially planned as perpetual. The perpetual saver is a public benefactor because he or she provides the rest of society with a permanent loan at rates chargeable for loans with maturity dates. Taxing perpetual saving will reduce its supply, thus resulting in losses to the rest of society. Inheritance tax does immense economic damage, according to Dr Bracewell-Milnes, and should be abolished. It is 'perverse and counterproductive for its own ostensible purposes, egalitarian or otherwise.

The Supreme Court in America has ruled that states may prohibit physician-assisted suicide. This text assembles experts in the field of medical ethics to provide an account of the arguments for and against physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, and for the historical, empirical and legal perspectives on this complicated issue. Questions are addressed here including: what does mercy dictate? is it a justification for killing? does physician-assisted suicide honour or violate autonomy? is it more dignified than natural death? is this decision purely a private matter? and will legalizing physician-assisted suicide put us on a slippery slop toward involuntary euthanasia? The text analyzes data taken from Holland, in an attempt to learn from the only country in which physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal.

This volume focuses on issues involving the inviolability of the human body and the decision to end life. The contributors explore the difficulties in framing a public policy that legalizes aid in dying, and return to the more general question of what is the most fair and effective relationship between private medical authority and public policy. In Part 1, biologists, ethicists, theologians and political scientists examine the issue of whether there ought to be limits to medical intervention. Although medicine has continually stretched the boundaries of intervention in the human body, new technologies of organ transplantation and genetics and the emergence of revolutionary drugs raise ethical concerns over how far we should go in moving from therapeutics to enhancement of the human body. Questions of inviolability also arise in situations where treatment of the foetus requires intrusion into the bodily integrity of the pregnant woman. The contributors debate what is meant by inviolability and where, if ever, it should be a matter of public policy. Part 2 brings together authors from bioethics, medicine, psychology, journalism and politics to examine the intensifying debate over the empowerment of patients in making decisions to end life.

Recent advances in medical technology have greatly increased physicians' ability to prolong life and have provoked widespread public concern regarding the rights of individuals to refuse treatment. The Right to Die analyzes the right to die as a controversial social and political issue and examines its development in contemporary public policy.

In this collection of essays by one of the foremost philosophers writing about issues of death and dying, the dilemmas raised by contemporary medicine concerning the way we die are explored. The volume focuses on the issues of withdrawing and withholding care, euthanasia, and suicide. Battin has written an extensive introduction which identifies the principle ethical issues and surveys the current political and social ferment over right-to-die issues. The essays range from treatments of the moral and philosophical issues to essays in practice and policy.

So how should we spend our time on Earth? Don Piper, the Minister of Hope who spent 90 minutes in Heaven, brings us God's message.
Hope for the here and now from the multimillion-selling author of "90 Minutes in Heaven."
Millions believe in Heaven. Don Piper's been there. He was pronounced dead after a car accident on January 18, 1989. Ninety minutes later, Piper came back to life with an extraordinary story. His "90 Minutes in Heaven" has strengthened the faith of countless people.
When Piper returned to this life, he had a long road back to health, dealing with painful treatments and physical disabilities-the "new normal," as Piper calls it. Still, he had been transformed spiritually and this allowed him not only to cope with his suffering, but to transcend it. Piper found purpose in his pain, he found the message in the mess, and so can anyone else who embraces God's grace in the here and now-as well as the Hereafter.
Don Piper did not return from Heaven alone-he brought the gift of hope back with him. Those who read "Heaven Is Real" can use what he learned to live the lives God has called them to live.