'Clear, helpful and very readable...This book breaks new ground and does indeed 'expand the debate' .' - Mortality

'This substantial academic volume, which seeks to expand the debate on physician-assisted suicide, is a significant addition to the growing number of edited works on one of the most important issues in contemporary bioethics ... an interesting, readable and topical collection of essays' - Journal of Medical Ethics

'The summaries in this review cannot convey the subtelties of argument and refreshing lack of cant in these essays. This excellent collection ... succeeds in expanding the debate ... well beyond its current narrow framework.' - New England Journal of Medicine

This book-first published a decade before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted-is the first authored volume on ethical issues in infectious disease, "monumental" for its competence and comprehensiveness. It is augmented here with a new Preface on COVID-19. The book develops an ethical framework for exploring contagious infectious disease, the patient-as-victim-and-vector view, grounded in the biological fact that a person with a communicable infectious disease is not only a victim of that disease, but at the same time also a potential vector. The patient may be both threatened, someone made ill or facing death, but also a threat, someone who may transmit an illness that will sicken or kill others. Clinical medicine has tended to see one part of this duality and public health the other; the victim-AND-vector view insists on both, at one and the same time. Against a background of methods from the long human history of contagious infectious disease-quarantine, isolation, cordon sanitaire, surveillance and contact tracing, testing by both archaic and modern methods, lockdown, and immunization-the victim-and-vector view spotlights ethical challenges for clinical medicine, research, public health, and health policy. These insights are probed in the new Preface on COVID-19 and are essential in our continuing struggle to address not only the current coronavirus pandemic, but the next, and the next after that.

Despite a growing consensus that effective palliative care should be a core element in the treatment of all terminally ill patients, challenging questions remain about the physician's role in helping suffering patients end their lives. Physician-assisted dying remains one of the most controversial issues facing doctors, lawmakers, and patients today, and the need for intelligent and informed opinion on both sides of the debate is greater than ever.

In this volume, a distinguished group of physicians, ethicists, lawyers, and activists come together to present the case "for" the legalization of physician-assisted dying, for terminally ill patients who voluntarily request it. To counter the arguments and assumptions of those opposed to legalization of assisted suicide, the contributors examine ethical arguments concerning self-determination and the relief of suffering; analyze empirical data from Oregon and the Netherlands; describe their personal experiences as physicians, family members, and patients; assess the legal and ethical responsibilities of the physician; and discuss the role of pain, depression, faith, and dignity in this decision. Together, the essays in this volume present strong arguments for the ethical acceptance and legal recognition of the practice of physician-assisted dying as a last resort--not as an alternative to excellent palliative care but as an important possibility for patients who seek it.

Contributors: Marcia Angell, Anthony L. Back, Charles H. Baron, Andrew I. Batavia, Tom L. Beauchamp, Els Borst-Eilers, Dan W. Brock, Christine K. Cassel, Eric J. Cassel, Barbara Coombs-Lee, Linda Ganzini, Peter Goodwin, Martin Gunderson, Gerrit K. Kimsma, Sylvia A. Law, David Mayo, Alan Meisel, Robert A. Pearlman, Thomas Preston, John Shelby Spong, Helene Starks, Eli D. Stutsman, Kathryn L. Tucker, Johannes J. M. Van Delden, Herman H. van der Kloot Meijburg, Evert van Leeuwen, Jaap J. F. Visser

The two volumes of Death, Dying, and the Ending of Life present the core of recent philosophical work on end-of-life issues. Volume I examines issues in death and consent: the nature of death, brain death and the uses of the dead and decision-making at the end of life, including the use of advance directives and decision-making about the continuation, discontinuation, or futility of treatment for competent and incompetent patients and children. Volume II, on justice and hastening death, examines whether there is a difference between killing and letting die, issues about physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia and questions about distributive justice and decisions about life and death.

This compact and innovative book tackles one of the central issues in drug policy: the lack of a coherent conceptual structure for thinking about drugs. Drugs generally fall into one of seven categories: prescription, over the counter, alternative medicine, common-use drugs like alcohol, tobacco and caffeine; religious-use, sports enhancement; and of course illegal street drugs like cocaine and marijuana. Our thinking and policies varies wildly from one to the other, with inconsistencies that derive more from cultural and social values than from medical or scientific facts. Penalties exist for steroid use, while herbal remedies or cold medication are legal. Native Americans may legally use peyote, but others may not. Penalties may vary for using different forms of the same drug, such as crack vs. powder cocaine. Herbal remedies are unregulated by the FDA; but medical marijuana is illegal in most states.
Battin and her contributors lay a foundation for a wiser drug policy by promoting consistency and coherency in the discussion of drug issues and by encouraging a unique dialogue across disciplines. The contributors are an interdisciplinary group of scholars mostly based at the University of Utah, and include a pharmacologist, a psychiatrist, a toxicologist, a trial court judge, a law professor, an attorney, a diatary specialist, a physician, a health expert on substance abuse, and Battin herself who is a philosopher. They consider questions like the historical development of current policy and the rationales for it; scientific views on how drugs actually cause harm; how to define the key notions of harm and addiction; and ways in which drug policy can be made more consistent. Theyconclude with an examination of the implications of a consistent policy for various disciplines and society generally.
The book is written accessibly with little need for expert knowledge, and will appeal to a diverse audience of philosophers, bioethicists, clinicians, policy makers, law enforcement, legal scholars and practitioners, social workers, and general readers, as well as to students in areas like pharmacy, medicine, law, nursing, sociology, social work, psychology, and bioethics.

When the children of Christian Scientists die from a treatable illness, are their parents guilty of murder for withholding that treatment? How should the rights of children, the authority of the medical community, and religious freedom be balanced? Is it possible for those adhering to a medical model of health and disease and for those adhering to the Christian Science model to enter into a meaningful dialogue, or are the two models incommensurable? DesAutels, Battin, and May engage in a lucid and candid debate of the issues of who is ultimately responsible for deciding these questions and how to accommodate (and, in some cases, constrain) Christian Science views and practices within a pluralistic society.

This compact and innovative book tackles one of the central issues in drug policy: the lack of a coherent conceptual structure for thinking about drugs. Drugs generally fall into one of seven categories: prescription, over the counter, alternative medicine, common-use drugs like alcohol, tobacco and caffeine; religious-use, sports enhancement; and of course illegal street drugs like cocaine and marijuana. Our thinking and policies varies wildly from one to the other, with inconsistencies that derive more from cultural and social values than from medical or scientific facts. Penalties exist for steroid use, while herbal remedies or cold medication are legal. Native Americans may legally use peyote, but others may not. Penalties may vary for using different forms of the same drug, such as crack vs. powder cocaine. Herbal remedies are unregulated by the FDA; but medical marijuana is illegal in most states. Battin and her contributors lay a foundation for a wiser drug policy by promoting consistency and coherency in the discussion of drug issues and by encouraging a unique dialogue across disciplines. The contributors are an interdisciplinary group of scholars mostly based at the University of Utah, and include a pharmacologist, a psychiatrist, a toxicologist, a trial court judge, a law professor, an attorney, a diatary specialist, a physician, a health expert on substance abuse, and Battin herself who is a philosopher. They consider questions like the historical development of current policy and the rationales for it; scientific views on how drugs actually cause harm; how to define the key notions of harm and addiction; and ways in which drug policy can be made more consistent. They conclude with an examination of the implications of a consistent policy for various disciplines and society generally. The book is written accessibly with little need for expert knowledge, and will appeal to a diverse audience of philosophers, bioethicists, clinicians, policy makers, law enforcement, legal scholars and practitioners, social workers, and general readers, as well as to students in areas like pharmacy, medicine, law, nursing, sociology, social work, psychology, and bioethics.