San Antonio College Library

In his illuminating history, Georges Minois examines how a culture's attitudes about suicide reflect its larger beliefs and values - perspectives on life and death, duty and honor, pain and pleasure. Minois addresses a wide range of questions drawn from theology, law, literature, science, and medicine. Under what circumstances has suicide been honored or condemned? On what grounds, if any, can it be justified? Under what conditions do suicides increase...

"Up to the 1970s, most Americans died swiftly: of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, or in accidents. But in the past three decades, medical advances have extended our lives and changed the way we die. Journalist Kiernan reveals the disconnect between how patients want to live the end of life--pain-free, functioning mentally and physically, surrounded by family and friends--and how the medical system continues to treat the dying--with extreme interventions,...

Presents a collection of essays that examine euthanasia from a number of different perspectives.

"Death on Demand explores the polarizing role of Jack Kevorkian - "Dr. Death"--As the most visible leader of the right-to-die movement. From a feature on the cover of Time magazine to interviews on shows like 60 Minutes, Kevorkian was a high-profile figure in the right-to-die movement, capturing constant media attention as he helped more than one hundred people kill themselves. / The book opens with the death of Janet Adkins in 1990 - Kevorkian's...

The ability of physicians to prolong life--through enhanced medical technology--has rapidly increased in recent years. Arguments for and against the use of medical procedures that merely extend the lives of those who are terminally ill or in hopeless medical condition touch on legal, social, political, moral, and professional ethics issues. To deal with this crisis, legislatures have recently passed living will laws and have developed other related...

A reasoned, passionate, and wide-ranging enquiry into the euthanasia debate and its consequences for individuals and society. 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.

"Is it and, if so, when is it appropriate for the dying to end their lives? When should their families, friends, or professional caregivers help them to do so? How does one ever begin to think about such decisions? Final acts of love provides those contemplating this journey the means to answer these questions and make well-reasoned, intelligent, humane decisions."--Jacket.

In Belgium, anyone deemed to be experiencing "unbearable and incurable suffering" is allowed the right to die, and euthanasia is often used on patients who have decades to live. Nearly 2,000 Belgians a year choose assisted suicide, but who decides if their suffering is "unbearable?" Brett Mason follows the stories of two Belgians considering assisted suicide, exploring the moral difficulties behind the most liberal euthanasia laws in the world.

Looks at the 1987 right-to-die trial affecting the parents who wished to remove the feeding tube from their vegetative daughter, and examines the surrounding protests that held them in the courtroom for the next seven years.