Orentlicher uses controversial life-and-death issues as case studies for evaluating three models for translating principle into practice. Physician-assisted suicide illustrates the application of "generally valid rules," a model that provides predictability and simplicity and, more importantly, avoids the personal biases that influence case-by-case judgments. The author then takes up the debate over forcing pregnant women to accept treatments to save their fetuses. He uses this issue to weigh the "avoidance of perverse incentives," an approach to translation that follows principles hesitantly for fear of generating unintended results. And third, Orentlicher considers the denial of life-sustaining treatment on grounds of medical futility in his evaluation of the "tragic choices" model, which hides difficult life-and-death choices in order to prevent paralyzing social conflict.

The Maru family struggles under Apartheid in 1963, as one son is falsely jailed and two others flee to Botswana. A series of events threaten to destroy the whole family, and in the end, three generations of women are forced to pick up the pieces.

This book focuses on the intrapsychic vicissitudes of what it means to be truly alive and how death accompanies us at each step of our life's journey. It shows that, psychologically-speaking, death is always present in life and life in death.

A year-long journey by the renowned psychiatrist and his writer wife after her terminal diagnosis, as they reflect on how to love and live without regret. Internationally acclaimed psychiatrist and author Irvin Yalom devoted his career to counseling those suffering from anxiety and grief. But never had he faced the need to counsel himself until his wife, esteemed feminist author Marilyn Yalom, was diagnosed with cancer. In A Matter of Death and Life, Marilyn and Irv share how they took on profound new struggles: Marilyn to die a good death, Irv to live on without her. In alternating accounts of their last months together and Irv's first months alone, they offer us a rare window into facing mortality and coping with the loss of one's beloved. The Yaloms had numerous blessings—a loving family, a Palo Alto home under a magnificent valley oak, a large circle of friends, avid readers around the world, and a long, fulfilling marriage—but they faced death as we all do. With the wisdom of those who have thought deeply, and the familiar warmth of teenage sweethearts who've grown up together, they investigate universal questions of intimacy, love, and grief. Informed by two lifetimes of experience, A Matter of Death and Life is an openhearted offering to anyone seeking support, solace, and a meaningful life.

This book discusses modern medical ethical dilemas from a specifically conservative Jewish point of view. The author includes issues such as artifical insemination, genetic engineering, cloning, surrogate motherhood, and birth control, as well as living wills, hospice care, euthanasia, organ donation, and autopsy.

"Beginning with the sudden, nauseating terror of a family caught up in an explosion of shocking sectarian violence and ending with the whiteout of an Iowa blizzard and a different kind of fear: the fear of displacement, erasure, of losing your way - and yourself - very far from home, Matters of Life & Death is a book about bonds and connections, made and broken, secret and known. In the story "Up on the Coast," a landscape painter discovers a place that makes her feel whole, finally, only to have that communion cruelly shattered by an arbitrary act of aggression - an act that will resonate through her work and life from that moment on."--BOOK JACKET.

In this extraordinary book, Iona Heath draws on her experience as a general practitioner to select and comment on a collection of passages concerning death and dying, and to consider the essential nature of general practice. In Ways of Dying Heath illuminates the process for professionals and lay readers, and stimulates consideration of approaches to improved care at end of life. Her renowned work The Mystery of General Practice (which has been unavailable for some time), considers the complex character of this field, its core values and changing roles. The two extended essays cover important issues on the role of the healthcare professional in the care of the dying, the idea of life and death, and the essential nature of general practice. Matters of Life and Death offers inspiration for all doctors, especially those with an interest in medical humanities. It will also be of great interest to general readers interested in end of life matters, and the nature and art of medicine.