The Right to Die: A Reference Handbook

(Hardback)

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This book provides a comprehensive and contemporary examination of the right-to-die issues facing society now that vast improvements in public health care and medicine have resulted in people not only living longer but taking much longer to dieoften in great pain and suffering. In 1900, the average age at which people died in America was 47 years of age; the primary causes of death were tuberculosis and other respiratory illnesses. In the 21st century, as a result of better health care and working conditions as well as advances in medical technology, we live much longeras of 2016, about 80 years. A much larger proportion of Americans now die from chronic diseases that generally appear at an advanced age, such as heart disease, cancer, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Should this fundamental change in human lifespan alter how society and government view right-to-die legislation What are the pros and cons of giving a mentally competent person who is terminally ill and in great pain the right to end his or her life The Right to Die: A Reference Handbook provides a complete examination of right-to-die issues in the United States that dissects the complex arguments for and against a person's liberty to receive a physician's assistance to hasten death. It covers the legal aspects and the politics of the right-to-die controversy, analyzes the battles over the right to die in state and federal courts, and supplies primary source documents that illustrate the political, medical, legal, religious, and ethical landscape of the right to die. Additionally, the book examines how members of our society typically die has changed in the past 150 years and how the practice of medicine has evolved over that time; explains why the right to die is strongly opposed by many religious groups as well as members of the medical profession; considers the "slippery slope" argument against doctor-assisted suicide; and identifies the reasons that the disabled, the poor, the elderly and infirm, and some members of ethnic, racial, and religious minority groups typically fear physician-assisted death.

Reviews

This high-quality work clearly addresses a challenging, perennial topic for paper assignments in a variety of fields of study and is thus well suited to undergraduate library collections, whether shelved in reference collections of guidebooks supporting research and writing or in the circulating stacks. Summing Up: Highly recommended. High school through undergraduate students; general readers. * Choice *
This well-written, engaging volume presents the debate evenhandedly, discussing both the belief that life should be preserved at all costs and the view that when pain becomes too overwhelming, people should be allowed to die. . . . This readable handbook will serve students well and is also suitable for the general reader. * Booklist *

Author Bio

Howard Ball, PhD, is professor emeritus of political science and university scholar at the University of Vermont, Burlington, VT.