Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Daniel Callahan
- Introduction
- 1 Euthanasia and the value of life
- 2 A philosophical case against euthanasia
- 3 The philosophical case against the philosophical case against euthanasia
- 4 The fragile case for euthanasia: a reply to John Harris
- 5 Final thoughts on final acts
- 6 Misunderstanding the case against euthanasia: response to Harris's first reply
- 7 Euthanasia: back to the future
- 8 The case for legalising voluntary euthanasia
- 9 Extracts from the Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics
- 10 Walton, Davies, Boyd and the legalization of euthanasia
- 11 Where there is hope, there is life: a view from the hospice
- 12 Letting vegetative patients die
- 13 A case for sometimes tube-feeding patients in persistent vegetative state
- 14 Dilemmas at life's end: a comparative legal perspective
- 15 Physician-assisted suicide: the last bridge to active voluntary euthanasia
- 16 Euthanasia in the Netherlands: sliding down the slippery slope?
- 17 Advance directives: a legal and ethical analysis
- 18 Theological aspects of euthanasia
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Daniel Callahan
- Introduction
- 1 Euthanasia and the value of life
- 2 A philosophical case against euthanasia
- 3 The philosophical case against the philosophical case against euthanasia
- 4 The fragile case for euthanasia: a reply to John Harris
- 5 Final thoughts on final acts
- 6 Misunderstanding the case against euthanasia: response to Harris's first reply
- 7 Euthanasia: back to the future
- 8 The case for legalising voluntary euthanasia
- 9 Extracts from the Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics
- 10 Walton, Davies, Boyd and the legalization of euthanasia
- 11 Where there is hope, there is life: a view from the hospice
- 12 Letting vegetative patients die
- 13 A case for sometimes tube-feeding patients in persistent vegetative state
- 14 Dilemmas at life's end: a comparative legal perspective
- 15 Physician-assisted suicide: the last bridge to active voluntary euthanasia
- 16 Euthanasia in the Netherlands: sliding down the slippery slope?
- 17 Advance directives: a legal and ethical analysis
- 18 Theological aspects of euthanasia
- Index
Summary
Euthanasia – the intentional killing of a patient, by act or omission, as part of his or her medical care – is, without doubt, one of the most pressing and profound issues confronting the modern world. It is pressing in that there appears to have been, as Dan Callahan indicates in his Foreword, a sea change in the climate of opinion, which is now more receptive than before to euthanasia and assisted suicide, and profound in that it raises questions of fundamental importance not only for health care professionals and their patients, but for lawyers and legislators, philosophers and theologians, and indeed all members of society.
Questions raised include: Is it always wrong for a doctor intentionally to kill a patient, even if the patient is suffering and asks for death? Do beneficence and respect for autonomy not require that his or her request be carried out? Do patients enjoy a ‘right to die’ and, if so, what does it mean? Are only some lives ‘worthwhile’ and, if so, which and why? Is there a moral difference between intending to hasten death and foreseeing that life will be shortened, or between killing and letting die, or between euthanasia and assisted suicide? Cart voluntary euthanasia be distinguished in principle from euthanasia without request? Can voluntary euthanasia be safely regulated or is the ‘slippery slope’ to euthanasia without request unavoidable? Is life a benefit for those in a ‘persistent vegetative state’ or should their treatment and feeding be stopped?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Euthanasia ExaminedEthical, Clinical and Legal Perspectives, pp. 1 - 5Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995