Taking Advance Directives Seriously

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Hazel Biggs

"Many advocates of euthanasia consider the criminal law to be an inappropriate medium to adjudicate the profound ethical and humanitarian dilemmas associated with end of life decisions. 'Euthanasia,Death with Dignity and the Law' examines the legal response to euthanasia and end of life decisions and considers whether legal reform is an appropriate response to calls for euthanasia to be more readily available as a mechanism for providing death with dignity. Through an analysis of consent to treatment, living wills and autonomous medical decision making, euthanasia is carefully located within its legal, medical, and social contexts. This book focuses on the impact of euthanasia on the dignity of both the recipient and the practitioner while emphasising the legal, professional, and ethical implications of euthanasia and its significance for the exercise of clinical discretion. It will provide a valuable addition to the euthanasia debate."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

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Malachi Martin

The shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the Church of Rome has mystified and troubled millions of Catholics as well as non-Catholics. This book reveals how influential members of that Church were ready to make their accommodation with a future under communism. The price of the Church's survival, they believed, must be a radical departure from Western institutions and the way of life we have all known. Opposed to them are other important officials who plead for a restoration of the Church to its proper role. The final decision taken by all these men, who speak for one quarter of the world's population, was made in the course of Conclave 82, a special meeting after the death of Paul VI at which the next Pope was elected. Dr. Martin, a former Jesuit, takes us behind the scenes to witness the forbidden maneuvering for Peter's crown and its worldly power; from the beginning of the seventies, many of the Cardinals have been electioneering.^ We learn why the sweeping changes of Paul VI, made--he was convinced--to assure the very survival of the Church, have pushed the Cardinals to one of the most critical decisions in our history. We watch the deal-makers, the holy men, the politicking, and the cynical alliances as the various factions attempt to gain control. All of the Cardinals are confronted by the accumulated corruption of more than a millennium: the Church as businessman, as a multi-national conglomerate involved in ownership and management of property, and as power-broker dealing in countries, continents, and human liberty. In the heart of this book, Malachi Martin recreates the actual scenario of Conclave 82. The reader will know more about the complete process from having experienced it in this book than many a Cardinal-Elector, including how illegal secret communications with the outside world are maintained.^ In a dramatic crescendo we witness a climax more moving than any play can ever be because we know it involves the future lives of nations, including our own. --Adapted from dust jacket.

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Dale Jamieson

Morality's Progress is the summation of nearly three decades of work by a leading figure in environmental ethics and bioethics. The twenty-two papers here are invigoratingly diverse, but together tell a unified story about various aspects of the morality of our relationships to animals and to nature. Jamieson's direct and accessible essays will convince sceptics that thinking about these relations offers great intellectual reward, and his work here sets a challenging, controversial agenda for the future. -- Amazon.com.

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Edward Lippman

Among the fine arts music has always held a paramount position. "Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul," wrote Plato. From the "music of the spheres" of Pythagoras to the "Future Music" of Wagner, from churches, courts, cathedrals, and concert halls to amateur recitals, military marches, and electronic records, music has commanded the perpetual attention of every civilization in history. This book follows through the centuries the debates about the place and function of music, the perceived role of music as a good or bad influence on the development of character, as a magical art or a domestic entertainment, and as a gateway to transcendental truths. Edward Lippman describes the beginnings of musical tradition in the myths and philosophies of antiquity. He shows how music theory began to take on new dimensions and intensity in the seventeenth century, how musical aesthetics was specifically defined and elaborated in the eighteenth century, and how, by the nineteenth century, music became the standard by which other arts were judged. The twentieth century added problems, pressure, and theories as music continued to diversify and as cultures viewed each other with more respect.