PHIL 2306 (Introduction to Ethics) - Dr. A. Antoninka

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CHAPTERS: Introduction - Justifications for suicide, assisted suicide and euthanasia - A revised natural law ethics - The good of human life -Suicide, assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia - Non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia - State intervention and the common good.

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CHAPTERS: Terri Schiavo and the culture wars: ethics vs. politics - At Theresa Schiavo's bedside: a guardian's role and reflections - Schiavo, privacy, and the interests of law - The Schiavo maelstrom's potential impact on the law of end-of-life decision making - The continuing assault on personal autonomy in the wake of the Schiavo case - A common uniqueness: medical facts in the Schiavo case - Crossing the borderlands at nightfall: new issues in moral philosophy and faith at the end of life - Disability rights and wrongs in the Terri Schiavo case - Framing Terri Schiavo: gender, disability, and fetal protection - Terri Schiavo and televised news: fact or fiction?

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Is suicide wrong, profoundly morally wrong? Almost always wrong, but excusable in a few cases? Sometimes morally permissible? Imprudent, but not wrong? Is it sick, a matter of mental illness? Is it a private matter or a largely social one? Could it sometimes be right, or a ""noble duty, "" or even a fundamental human right? Whether it is called ""suicide"" or not, what role may a person play in the end of his or her own life?

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How cogent is the 'slippery slope' objection to the issue of whether voluntary euthanasia is permissible? Is it reasonable to argue that patients who did not make a free and informed request would be killed? This lucid introduction to this question will interest all on both sides of the debate.

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CHAPTERS: Sentenced to life - It's over, Debbie - Doctors must not kill - Debbie's dying: Mercy killing and the good death - Case of Karen Quinlan - Active and passive euthanasia: An impertinent distinction? - More impertinent distinctions - Right to die: The moral dilemmas - Sanctity of life versus quality of life - Wrongfulness of euthanasia - Assisted suicide: An ethical perspective - Assisting suicide: An ethical perspective - Justifiable active euthanasia in the Netherlands - Active voluntary euthanasia: A needless Pandora's Box - Ethical issues in aiding the death of young children - Conclusions of a British Medical Association review of guidelines on euthanasia - Case for active voluntary euthanasia - Physician's responsibility toward hopelessly ill patients: A second look - Missouri v. Cruzan.

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The practice of palliative care and hospice is filled with sometimes overt (requests for hastened death in an environment where such acts are legally prohibited) and other times covert (the delay in palliative care referral because the health care team believes it will undermine disease directed treatment) ethical issues. The contributors to this volume use a series of case presentations within each chapter to illustrate some of the palliative care and hospice challenges with significant ethical dimensions across the three overarching domains: 1) care delivery systems; 2) addressing the many dimensions of suffering; and 3) difficult decisions near the end of life.

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CHAPTERS: 1. The Significance of Inaccurate History in Legal Considerations of Physician-Assisted Suicide - 2. Doctors and the Dying of Patients in American History - 3. Self-Extinction: The Morality of the Helping Hand - 4. Physician-Assisted Suicide Is Sometimes Morally Justified - 5. Physician-Assisted Suicide Is Not an Acceptable Practice for Physicians - 6. Assisting in Patient Suicides Is an Acceptable Practice for Physicians - 7. Physician-Assisted Death in the Context of Disability - 8. Physician-Assisted Suicide, Abortion, and Treatment Refusal: Using Gender to Analyze the Difference - 9. Considerations of Safeguards Proposed in Laws and Guidelines to Legalize Assisted Suicide- 10. Physician-Assisted Suicide: Evolving Public Policies

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CHAPTERS: The needs of the patient - Rational suicide: the core of the controversy - The search for help: physician assistance - Dying alone or dying with help: our frightened society - Physicians' concerns - Public concerns: abuse and the slippery slope - The legal basis for assisted dying - From patients to physicians and policy.

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The medical situation is critical, even life-threatening. The doctor refuses to offer or to continue providing "futile" medical treatment. The patient, or the patient's family, insists that everything possible must be done. Who should decide? In this book, philosopher and bioethicist Susan B. Rubin examines this controversial issue.