Overview
Several recent trends - demographic, social, and economic - are increasing the incidence and public support of deliberate death among the old and sick. Barbara Logue examines this trend and its ethical implications, describing hazards inherent in our present long-term care system, noting that all too often the system causes suffering instead of alleviating it. After assessing the alternatives, she urges that we must make compassionate death control as available as birth control. We must regulate and monitor it like any other medical procedure, taking steps to minimize the risks while maximizing the benefits.
Full Product Details
Author: Barbara J. Logue
Publisher: Lexington Books
Imprint: Lexington Books
Dimensions:
Width: 16.60cm
, Height: 3.10cm
, Length: 24.00cm
Weight: 0.717kg
ISBN: 9780669273700
ISBN 10: 0669273708
Pages: 372
Publication Date: 26 July 1998
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Out of Print
Availability: Awaiting stock
Reviews
The advantages of deliberate death are too appealing to simply go away, asserts demographer Logue in this examination of the social forces that are driving us toward death control, especially for the old and frail. Logue draws frequent parallels between death control - defined here as deliberate behavior that hastens death for a person suffering from an incurable condition, including the degenerative symptoms of old age - and birth control. Controlling reproduction, once a taboo topic and a criminal act, is now common practice, and Logue sees the same development occurring in the control of death as public acceptance of the idea, perception of its advantages, and the means of achievement come together. She considers the possible alternatives to death control, such as better care for the frail elderly, and concludes that improving care may actually lead to an increase in deliberate deaths as care-givers come to see that caring is consistent with letting-go, even with helping to let go. Logue acknowledges that death control has risks as well as advantages and that these risks are not spread evenly: gender, race, and class come into play. She's confident, however, that the risks can be minimized with proper legislation, and that just as we have clone away with back-alley abortions, so can we do away with back-alley euthanasia. Opponents of death control will argue that the risks are inadequately explored here, but if Logue's goal is to document the growing acceptance of death control and to stimulate debate on the issue, she succeeds. A well-researched, clear presentation of a tough topic. (For an opposing view, see Rita Marker's Deadly Compassion, reviewed below.) (Kirkus Reviews)
