JISCMail - DEATH-SOCCON Archives

Dear DEATH-SOCCON subscribers,

We hope you find this title of interest.

The Case Against Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide

Margaret Somerville

"This book would be a most welcome addition to the library of any person interested in the debate on euthanasia. Somerville succeeds in discussing openly and honestly both sides of the euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide debate."—Saskatchewan Law Review

Death Talk asks why, when our society has rejected euthanasia for over two thousand years, are we now considering legalizing it? Has euthanasia been promoted by deliberately confusing it with other ethically acceptable acts? What is the relation between pain relief treatments that could shorten life and euthanasia? How do journalistic values and media ethics affect the public's perception of euthanasia? What impact would the legalization of euthanasia have on concepts of human rights, human responsibilities, and human ethics? Can we imagine teaching young physicians how to put their patients to death? There are vast ethical, legal, and social differences between natural death and euthanasia.

In Death Talk, Margaret Somerville argues that legalizing euthanasia would cause irreparable harm to society's value of respect for human life, which in secular societies is carried primarily by the institutions of law and medicine. Death has always been a central focus of the discussion that we engage in as individuals and as a society in searching for meaning in life. Moreover, we accommodate the inevitable reality of death into the living of our lives by discussing it, that is, through "death talk." Until the last twenty years this discussion occurred largely as part of the practice of organized religion. Today, in industrialized western societies, the euthanasia debate provides a context for such discussion and is part of the search for a new societal-cultural paradigm. Seeking to balance the "death talk" articulated in the euthanasia debate with "life talk," Somerville identifies the very serious harms for individuals and society that would result from accepting euthanasia. A sense of the unfolding euthanasia debate is captured through the inclusion of Somerville's responses to or commentaries on several other authors' contributions.

Margaret Somerville is Gale Professor of Law, professor in the Faculty of Medicine, and founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics, and Law at McGill University. She is also the author of The Ethical Canary: Science, Society, and the Human Spirit.

McGill-Queen's University Press

April 2014 470pp 9780773543768 Paperback ~~£23.99~~ now only £17.99 when you quote CSL315DEAT when you order.

http://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/death-talk-second-edition

UK Postage and Packing £2.95, Europe £4.50

(PLEASE QUOTE REF NUMBER: CSL315DEAT for discount)

To order a copy please contact Marston on +44(0)1235 465500 or email [log in to unmask]

or visit our website:

http://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/

where you can also receive your discount

*Offer excludes the USA, South America and Australasia.