Arthur S. Berger - Böcker

Dramatic advances in medical technology make it possible to keep an individual alive well after life would otherwise be untenable. These medical advances raise complex and disturbing questions about the appropriateness of allowing or even helping a person to die. This provocative new book provides guidelines for dealing with the sensitive legal and ethical issues surrounding an individual's right to die. Designed to give a global perspective on these contemporary issues, To Die or Not to Die? integrates the ideas and experiences of ten authorities from different disciplines, cultures, and legal systems, recognizing that no single discipline offers an insight that is broad enough to solve the problems caused by rapidly changing medical technology. The book discusses the issues in a comprehensive manner integrating the attitudes of various cultures, and investigates the approaches and solutions of several different legal systems.Challenging many commonly held views on the issues surrounding an individual's right to die, this book builds a new foundation for thinking or rethinking these controversial questions. It allows the reader to consider new and diverse perspectives side by side for the first time. Valuable appendices supply references, statutes, judicial decisions, and important forms for more detailed study. To Die or Not to Die? will prove stimulating reading for professionals in medicine, nursing, theology, law, public health and the disciplines of philosophy, ethics, psychology, and sociology.

While health professionals may be adequately informed about the legal aspects of many specialized areas of medicine and nursing, they may not totally understand the law applicable to cases of dying patients, or even the legal definition of death itself. In the wake of advances in medical technology, recent court decisions on the right to die, the enactment of natural death and brain death statutes, advance directives and living wills, and growing use of organ transplantation, there has been widespread concern about the legal and ethical issues surrounding these subjects. This book, written by a lawyer-thanatologist, will satisfy these needs. It is the first work to bring together case and statutory law applicable to dying patients, the right to die, advance directives, brain death, and organ transplantation, thus formulating a law of dying and death.It is also unique as a self-help law finder. Although occasions that require consultation with a lawyer will arise, this work gives health professionals practical guidance on where and how to find legal materials on these issues. This book should also prove immensely useful in summarizing the law concerning dying and death for professional legal counsel. Medical decisions and issues that once were the sole province of doctors, hospitals, patients, and families have become matters of increasing judicial and legislative attention.

None of the literature in the field of terminal care provides a full treatment of the laws, documents, and policies relating to the difficult issues arising at the end of life. When Life Ends was written to fill this gap by an attorney who serves on the bioethics committee of a large public hospital. It is an invaluable resource and practical tool for physicians, nurses, medical staffs, legal professionals, hospital administrators, and hospital bioethics committees because it provides: 1) in-depth legal commentaries on the refusal of life-sustaining treatment, advance directives, surrogate decision making, and the Patient Self-Determination Act; 2) more than 70 medical and legal documents to be used in connection with end of life decisions; and 3) hospital policies and procedures to suggest guidelines to hospital bioethics committees as they carry out their functions of developing policies and procedures to address end of life legal and ethical issues.