Death talk: The case against euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide [Hardcover]

Margaret A. Somerville (Author)

List Price:	CDN$ 75.00
Price:	CDN$ 57.82 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save:	CDN$ 17.18 (23%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Usually ships within 1 to 3 weeks.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

Formats	Amazon Price		New from	Used from
Hardcover	CDN $57.82		--	--
Paperback	CDN $20.76		--	--

Product Details

Hardcover: 454 pages
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press (Oct 3 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0773522018
ISBN-13: 978-0773522015
Product Dimensions: 23.7 x 16.4 x 3.7 cm
Shipping Weight: 830 g

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

"Death Talk" asks why, when our society has rejected euthanasia for over two thousand years, are we now considering legalising 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 legalisation of euthanasia have on concepts of human rights, human responsibilities, and human ethics? And, 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 legalising 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 organised religion. Today, in industrialised 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.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.

First Sentence
We live at a time of unusually intense activity with respect to the evolution of a new cultural paradigm (on which to base a new societal one): the store of values, attitudes, beliefs, commitments, and myths. Read the first page

Explore More
Concordance