Right to Die

Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics

Life's Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom

One of the country's most distinguished scholars presents a brilliantly original approach to the twin dilemmas of abortion and euthanasia, showing why they arouse such volcanic controversy and how we as a society can reconcile our values of life and individual liberty.

Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America

It often seems that medical technology is a never-ending string of miracles. But it is also a double-edged sword. More often than not, death today happens because of a decision to stop doing something, or to not do it at all. As the tragic life and death of Terri Schiavo so poignantly illustrated, universal definitions of life, death, nature, and many other concepts are elusive at best. Unplugged addresses the fundamental questions of the right-to-die debate, and discusses how the medical advances that bring so much hope and healing have also helped to create todayÂ’s dilemma.

Now in paperback, this compelling book illuminates the complex legal, ethical, medical, and deeply personal issues of a debate that ultimately affects us all. Compassionate and beautifully written, the book helps readers understand the implications of current laws and proposed legislation, various medical options (including hospice), and the typical end-of-life decisions we all must face in order to make informed decisions for ourselves and our loved ones.

The hardcover edition was chosen by The Library Journal as one of the Best Consumer Health Books of 2006.

Medical technology has helped mankind conquer tuberculosis, polio, and countless other once certain-death diseases. It has given us hope against cancer and AIDS, allowed heart and brain surgeries that have saved untold numbers of lives, and delivered us from the pain and crippling legacy of injury. Medical technology, it seems, is a never-ending string of miracles.

But it is also a double-edged sword. More often than not, death today happens because of a decision to stop doing something, or to not do it at all. As the tragic life and death of Terri Schiavo so poignantly illustrated, universal definitions of life, death, nature, and many other concepts are elusive at best. Unplugged addresses the fundamental questions of the right-to-die debate, and discusses how the medical advances that bring so much hope and healing have also helped to create today’s dilemma.

This compelling book explores recent high-profile cases, including that of Mrs. Schiavo, and illuminates the complex legal, ethical, medical, and deeply personal issues of a debate that ultimately affects us all. Compassionate and beautifully written, the book helps readers understand the implications of current laws and proposed legislation, various medical options (including hospice), and the typical end-of-life decisions we all must face in order to make informed decisions for ourselves and our loved ones.

The hardcover edition of Unplugged was chosen by The Library Journal as one of the Best Consumer Health Books of 2006.

Understanding Assisted Suicide: Nine Issues to Consider

Dying Right: The Death with Dignity Movement

Dying Right is the first work to provide a comprehensive and first-hand account of the Death with Dignity movement in the US and around the world. The book also provides an in-depth look at Oregon, the first place to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Engaging the question of how to balance a patient's sense about the right way to die, a physician's role as a healer, and the state's interest in preventing killing, Dying Right captures the ethical, legal, moral, and medical complexities involved in this ongoing debate.

The Complete Living Will Kit (+ CD-ROM) (How to Write Your Own Living Will)

Control Your Critical Health Care Decisions

The Complete Living Will Kit is an easy-to-use guide to preparing your own living will without the expense of an attorney. A living will, along with a health care power of attorney, provides your family and doctors with instructions for your health care and ensures that your wishes are followed-even if you are unable to speak for yourself. Inside, learn how easy it is to prepare all the documents you may ever need. Simple instructions and samples walk you through filling out your own forms and giving your family the power to carry out your health care wishes.

Write the Best Living Will for You
With step-by-step instructions and sample filled-in forms, you can easily personalize the documents to express exactly what you want to happen if you ever become incapacitated.

Ensure Complete Coverage
Learn about other valuable health care documents, including health care powers of attorney and do not resuscitate orders, that guide your family and doctors in the case of an emergency.

Direct Your Doctors
Ensure that your doctors follow your specific wishes and make the health decisions you want-no matter the situation.

Prepare Your Specific Needs
State-by-state listings covering every state’s laws and specifically sanctioned forms make this book your one-stop guide for preparing the precise documentation you need.

Share Your Decisions
Learn the importance of notifying your family and friends of your decisions and providing your health care agents with all the necessary information-before it is too late.

Modify Forms for Your Needs
Find all the essential forms on the accompanying CD-ROM and modify each form to say exactly what you want.

Making your health care wishes known has never been easier.

How to Write Your Own Living Will

Recent headlines from Florida involved a brain-damaged woman on life support for more than 13 years. Because there was no written living will, decisions concerning her incapacitation were repeatedly taken to court and even addressed by the governor of the state.

Discusses specifics of a living will, including medical emergencies Contrasts a living will and health care power of attorney Details regulations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia Contains state-specific living will forms Covers cancellation of living will information

Assisted Dying and Legal Change

The question of whether euthanasia and assisted suicide should be legalized is often treated, by judges and commentators, as a universal, ethical question, transcending national boundaries and diverse legal systems. By thinking of the issue in this way, the important context in which individual jurisdictions make decisions about assisted dying and the significance of the legal methods chosen to carry out those decisions is often lost.
This book examines the impact of the choice of diverse legal routes towards legalization on the subsequent assisted dying regimes in operation. This examination suggests that greater caution is needed before relying on the experience of one jurisdiction when discussing proposals for regulation of assisted dying in others. The book seeks to demonstrate the need to explore the legal environment in which assisted dying is performed or proposed in order to evaluate the relevance of a particular legal experience to other jurisdictions.
The book explores the unsuccessful attempts to use constitutionally entrenched human rights claims to challenge criminal prohibitions on assisted suicide which reached the highest courts in the United States, Canada and Europe. Their failure makes legalization through a rights-based claim unlikely in any major common law or European jurisdiction. Alternative routes towards legalization are then discussed, including the defense of necessity, by which euthanasia was effectively legalized in the Netherlands and an approach based on compassion which has been proposed in France, as well as the legislative approaches which have been taken in Oregon, Belgium and the Northern Territory of Australia. All of these approaches are compared in some detail, with particular attention paid to the effectiveness and transferability of the ubiquitous slippery slope arguments

The Case of Terri Schiavo: Ethics at the End of Life

After the Nancy Cruzan case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1990, and ultimately resolved by the Courts of the State of Missouri, the decision to withhold or withdraw life-prolonging nutrition and hydration appeared to many to be as noncontroversial as decisions to refuse respirators or dialysis. Even the Catholic Church held that, although there should be a presumption in favor of providing nutrition and hydration, the patient or the patientÂ’s surrogate could overrule this presumption, if either believed the treatment was disproportionate or burdensome.

The Schiavo case changed all that. Although the decision to remove Terri Schiavo’s nutrition and hydration was made by her husband—her legal surrogate—based on his wife’s belief that such treatment was disproportionate, Schiavo’s immediate family protested so much that the case took years to resolve. It eventually involved all branches of government at both the state and federal levels.

The ethical dilemmas that such cases pose continue to stir great controversy. This in-depth examination of these dilemmas provides information and documentation from many perspectives. The editors have included a foreword by Dr. Jay Wolfson, Terri SchiavoÂ’s court-appointed guardian ad litem, as well as Dr. WolfsonÂ’s report to Gov. Jeb Bush on the case and Gov. BushÂ’s reply; public statements by President George Bush and Senators David Weldon, Rick Santorum, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and Barney Frank; statements by the pope and other representatives of the Catholic Church on this issue; plus much medical and legal background material on both precedents to the Schiavo case and its aftermath, including the results of the autopsy report.

For anyone wishing an in-depth understanding of these complex ethical issues, issues many of us will have to confront in our own families, this volume is indispensable.

The Right vs. the Right to Die: Lessons from the Terri Schiavo Case and How to Stop It from Happening Again

The Terri Schiavo case was a key battle in a larger political struggle over abortion, stem-cell research, physician-assisted suicide, gay rights, and the appointment of federal judges. The religious Right chose to make it a national spectacle because they thought they could win. They were wrong. But there are many more battles to come. Jon Eisenberg, who served as one of the lead attorneys on Michael Schiavo's side, exposes the religious Right's strategies and follows the money trail to reveal how they are organized, who is funding the movement, and where we can expect future legal maneuvers to combat the American traditions of autonomy and freedom.

Jon Eisenberg has experienced the family struggle of removing a feeding tube from a loved one and witnessed firsthand the Florida drama that will continue to have national legal and political consequences for years to come. What tactics can we expect to see in courtrooms and state legislatures all across this country in the days ahead? Who is behind the funding and what do they hope to accomplish and when? What are the religious and bioethical issues that are at the center of these debates and how will they affect future legal battles? Using Terri gives us a behind-the-scenes look at what happened -- and what's coming.