Items related to In the Arms of Others: A Cultural History of the Right-To-Di...
Synopsis
When, if ever, is life no longer worth living? When, if ever, is it right to withdraw life-support or hasten death? And who should decide? These questions--that confront physicians, bioethicists, social workers, the children of aging parents, and sooner or later almost everyone--now receive increasingly urgent attention in American society. Peter Filene's In the Arms of Others is the first book to set this dilemma into broad historical and cultural context.
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Review
"As we think about how we hope to die," writes Peter Filene, "we need to take into account the perspectives of history and culture. They will help us understand the ambiguities that await us and the choices we want to make or to have made for us, so that each of us can give his or her life the kind of ending it deserves."
Filene begins by introducing his reader to the 19th-century tradition of the "good death" (the literal translation of the word "euthanasia"). At a time when disease was usually incurable, he explains, a gentle death, often involving drugs in "as large a dose as needed for a peaceful passing," was the best an ill person could hope for. Using the Karen Ann Quinlan case as a benchmark, the author then sifts through the late-20th-century issues around dying, drawing in the reader with stories of people who have themselves faced modern dying's dilemmas.
"Modern medicine," says the author, "produced modern dying"; no longer always a single event, but a "prolonged process," requiring deliberation and decision-making for doctors, families, judges, and the dying themselves. Faced with this process, the author and his subjects ask: "How can we die with dignity?" This intelligent, compassionate, finely written book is Filene's contribution towards an answer. --Maria Dolan
About the Author
Peter Filene is professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His other books include Home and Away (a novel) and Him/Her/Self, a celebrated history of gender identities.
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- PublisherDiane Pub Co
- Publication date2003
- ISBN 10 0756752175
- ISBN 13 9780756752170
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages282
- Rating
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