A Concise History Of Euthanasia

Download or read book A Concise History of Euthanasia written by Ian Dowbiggin and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This deeply informed history traces the controversial record of "mercy-killing," a source of heated debate among doctors and laypeople alike. Dowbiggin examines evolving opinions about what constitutes a good death, taking into account the societal and religious values placed on sin, suffering, resignation, judgment, penance, and redemption. He also examines the bitter struggle between those who stress a right to compassionate and effective end-of-life care and those who define human life in terms of either biological criteria, utilitarian standards, a faith in science, humane medical treatment, the principle of personal autonomy, or individual human rights. Considering both the influence of technological and behavioral changes in the practice of medicine and the public's surprising lack of awareness of death's many clinical and biological dimensions, this book raises profound personal and collective questions on the future of euthanasia.

Download or read book The Modern Art of Dying written by Shai J. Lavi and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we die reveals much about how we live. In this provocative book, Shai Lavi traces the history of euthanasia in the United States to show how changing attitudes toward death reflect new and troubling ways of experiencing pain, hope, and freedom. Lavi begins with the historical meaning of euthanasia as signifying an "easeful death." Over time, he shows, the term came to mean a death blessed by the grace of God, and later, medical hastening of death. Lavi illustrates these changes with compelling accounts of changes at the deathbed. He takes us from early nineteenth-century deathbeds governed by religion through the medicalization of death with the physician presiding over the deathbed, to the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. Unlike previous books, which have focused on law and technique as explanations for the rise of euthanasia, this book asks why law and technique have come to play such a central role in the way we die. What is at stake in the modern way of dying is not human progress, but rather a fundamental change in the way we experience life in the face of death, Lavi argues. In attempting to gain control over death, he maintains, we may unintentionally have ceded control to policy makers and bio-scientific enterprises.

Download or read book A Merciful End written by Ian Robert Dowbiggin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first full history of the euthanasia movement in the U.S. It tells for the first time the dramatic story of those reformers who struggled throughout the twentieth century to change the nation's attidues towards mercy-killing and assisted suicide. Original, wide-ranging in scope, but sensitive to the personal dimensions of euthanasia. A Merciful End is an illuminating and cautionary account of tension between motives and methods within twenty-century social reform, providing a refreshingly new perspective on an old debate.

Download or read book Merciful Release written by N. D. A. Kemp and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Labour government elected in 1997 pledged to reform the Westminster parliament by modernising the House of Commons and removing the hereditary peers from the House of Lords. Events have consequently demonstrated the deep controversy that accompanies such attempts at institutional reconfiguration, and have highlighted the shifting fault lines in executive-legislative relations in the UK, as well as the deep complexities surrounding British constitutional politics. The story of parliamentary reform is about the nature of the British political system, about how the government seeks to expand its control over parliament, and about how parliament discharges its duty to scrutinise the executive and hold it to account. This book, available in paperback for the first time, charts the course of Westminster reform since 1997, but does so by placing it in the context of parliamentary reform pursued in the past, and thus adopts a historical perspective which lends it considerable analytical value. Significantly, the book examines parliamentary reform through the lens of institutional theory, in order not only to describe reform but also to interpret and explain it. It also draws on extensive interviews conducted with MPs and peers involved in the reform of parliament since 1997, thus offering a unique insight into how these political actors perceived the reform process in which they played a part.Parliamentary reform at Westminster, now available in paperback, provides a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the trajectory and outcome of the reform of parliament, along with an incisive interpretation of the implications for our understanding of British politics.

Download or read book Forced Exit written by Wesley J. Smith and published by Crown. This book was released on 1997 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exposing the false premise of the euthanasia movement to make a compelling case against assisted suicide, "Forced Exit" reveals the horrors of the Netherlands, where 8.5 percent of all deaths are attributed to assisted suicide and where Dutch doctors have rapidly moved from euthanizing the terminally ill to killing infants with birth defects.

Download or read book Euthanasia and Physician-assisted Suicide written by Michael Manning (M.D.) and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise overview of the history and arguments surrounding euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

Download or read book Five Days at Memorial written by Sheri Fink and published by Crown. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning book that inspired an Apple Original series from Apple TV+ • A landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina—and the suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice—from a Pulitzer Prize–winning physician and reporter “An amazing tale, as inexorable as a Greek tragedy and as gripping as a whodunit.”—Dallas Morning News After Hurricane Katrina struck and power failed, amid rising floodwaters and heat, exhausted staff at Memorial Medical Center designated certain patients last for rescue. Months later, a doctor and two nurses were arrested and accused of injecting some of those patients with life-ending drugs. Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting by Pulitzer Prize winner Sheri Fink, unspools the mystery, bringing us inside a hospital fighting for its life and into the most charged questions in health care: which patients should be prioritized, and can health care professionals ever be excused for hastening death? Transforming our understanding of human nature in crisis, Five Days at Memorial exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals how ill-prepared we are for large-scale disasters—and how we can do better. ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, Entertainment Weekly, Christian Science Monitor, Kansas City Star WINNER: National Book Critics Circle Award, J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Ridenhour Book Prize, American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award, National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Award