Handbook on Critical Life Issues

Our popular classroom text appears in a revised third edition with updates on nutrition and hydration, the ¬persistent vegetative state, stem cell research, euthanasia, important court rulings, and many other ¬topics critical to today's health care profession. The work is divided into three main sections: "Personhood," which ¬considers the use of faith and reason in the analysis of moral questions in medical decision-making and ¬bioethics; "The Beginning of Human Life," which examines the origin of the person, abortion, various ¬reproductive ¬technologies, and stem cell research; and "The End of Human Life," which considers organ transplantation, suicide, ¬decisions about prolonging life, and the determination of death. The appendices include a new chapter on eugenics, ¬discussions of difficult end-of-life cases, the Declaration on Euthanasia, and the two Vatican instructions ¬Donum vitae (1987) and Dignitas personae (2008). Each chapter has newly revised review ¬questions that reiterate key points from the text and a set of discussion questions for generating student participation in classroom settings. This volume has been in continuous print for nearly thirty years. Rev. John A. Leies is professor of theology and President Emeritus of St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, where he has been named as an Outstanding Faculty Member of the School of Arts and Social Sciences and the Graduate School.