If That Ever Happens to Me: Making Life and Death Decisions After Terri Schiavo (Studies in Social Medicine) - Hardcover

Shepherd, Lois

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9780807832950: If That Ever Happens to Me: Making Life and Death Decisions After Terri Schiavo (Studies in Social Medicine)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807832952 ISBN 13: 9780807832950

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009

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Every day, thousands of people quietly face decisions as agonizing as those made famous in the Terri Schiavo case. Throughout that controversy, all kinds of people—politicians, religious leaders, legal and medical experts—made emphatic statements about the facts and offered even more certain opinions about what should be done. To many, courts were either ordering Terri's death by starvation or vindicating her constitutional rights. Both sides called for simple answers. If That Ever Happens to Me details why these simple answers were not right for Terri Schiavo and why they are not right for end-of-life decisions today.Lois Shepherd looks behind labels like "starvation," "care," or "medical treatment" to consider what care and feeding really mean, when feeding tubes might be removed, and why disability groups, the faithful, and even the dying themselves often suggest end-of-life solutions that they might later regret. For example, Shepherd cautions against living wil

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Book Description:

" If That Ever Happens to Me is a wise and sober analysis written with the desire to draw constructive lessons from a national tragedy. Shepherd is to be congratulated for ratcheting down the red state-blue state polemics of Schiavo and for her careful parsing of the medical, legal, and bioethical dimensions of the case. To her credit, she conceives of a sensible alternative philosophy of care which will help define our collective obligations to those in liminal states of consciousness. This important formulation will lead to more proportionate care for this vulnerable population, balancing both their right to die with the right to receive care."--Joseph J. Fins, M.D., F.A.C.P., chief, Division of Medical Ethics, Weill Cornell Medical College

About the Author:

Lois Shepherd is associate professor of public health sciences and professor of law at the University of Virginia. She is coauthor of Bioethics and the Law.

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