Physician-Assisted Suicide

Portada
Robert F. Weir
Indiana University Press, 1997 M05 22 - 288 páginas

"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.

Dentro del libro

Páginas seleccionadas

Contenido

The Significance of Inaccurate History in Legal Con
3
Doctors and the Dying of Patients in American History
33
SelfExtinction
69
PhysicianAssisted Suicide Is Sometimes Morally
86
PhysicianAssisted Suicide Is Not an Acceptable
107
Assisting in Patient Suicides Is an Acceptable Practice
136
PhysicianAssisted Death in the Context of Disability
155
Considerations of Safeguards Proposed in Laws and
205
PhysicianAssisted Suicide
224
Kevorkian Supreme Court of Michigan 1994
243
Vacco United States Court of Appeals Second
253
INDEX
259
Derechos de autor

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Términos y frases comunes

Pasajes populares

Página 35 - A physician ought not to abandon a patient because the case is deemed incurable; for his attendance may continue to be highly useful to the patient, and comforting to the relatives around him, even in the last period of a fatal malady, by alleviating pain and other symptoms, and by soothing mental anguish. To decline attendance, under such circumstances, would be sacrificing to fanciful delicacy, and mistaken liberality, that moral duty, which is independent of, and far superior to, all pecuniary...
Página 155 - Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body; and a surgeon who performs an operation without his patient's consent commits an assault, for which he is liable in damages.
Página 217 - If in the opinion of the attending physician or the consulting physician a patient may be suffering from a psychiatric or psychological disorder or depression causing impaired judgment, either physician shall refer the patient for counseling. No medication to end a patient's life in a humane and dignified manner shall be prescribed until the person performing the counseling determines that the patient is not suffering from a psychiatric or psychological disorder or depression causing impaired judgment.
Página 35 - For, the physician should be the minister of hope and comfort to the sick; that, by such cordials to the drooping spirit, he may smooth the bed of death, revive expiring life, and counteract the depressing influence of those maladies which often disturb the tranquillity of the most resigned in their last moments.
Página 103 - Active and Passive Euthanasia," New England Journal of Medicine 292, no. 2 (9 Jan.
Página 8 - We may then say conclusively: the term suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result.
Página 3 - Our task, of course, is to resolve the issue by constitutional measurement, free of emotion and of predilection. We seek earnestly to do this, and, because we do, we have inquired into, and in this opinion place some emphasis upon, medical and medical-legal history and what that history reveals about man's attitudes toward the abortion procedure over the centuries. We bear in mind, too, Mr. Justice Holmes' admonition in his now-vindicated dissent in Lochner v.
Página 5 - Edelstein then concludes that the Oath originated in a group representing only a small segment of Greek opinion and that it certainly was not accepted by all ancient physicians. He points out that medical writings down to Galen (AD 130-200) "give evidence of the violation of almost every one of its injunctions.
Página 18 - Christ: •who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us out of this present evil world, according to the •will of our God and Father: to whom be the glory for ever and ever.

Acerca del autor (1997)

Robert F. Weir is Director of the Program in Biomedical Ethics and Medical Humanities at the University of Iowa College of Medicine.

Información bibliográfica