Experts analyze death-related issues and policies in twelve countries, discussing health care costs, advance directives, pain management, cultural, social, and religious factors, and other topics.

The impressive advances in medical technology in the last half-century have helped to save thousands of lives that would have been lost due to organ failures. However, the use of this technology in clinically irreversible settings can result in the undue delay of the death process. Throughout its chapters, this book highlights the various facets of the controversial ethical dilemma of the end of life. It provides a historical background to this discussion, its philosophical underpinnings, and the perspectives of various religions on this journey along treatment obstinacy. The book helps the reader to see and understand this problem from a holistic perspective, and to apprehend other major questions about life and death. It is a book to be read by all those who are concerned with death in modern societies and particularly with medical ethics and professional conduct.

A Good Death is a candid and provocative account of the experiences of many terminally ill people Dr Rodney Syme has assisted to end their lives. Over the past thirty years Syme has challenged the law on voluntary euthanasia—at first clandestinely and now publicly—risking prosecution in doing so. He again risks prosecution for writing this book. A Good Death is a moving journey with those who came to Syme for help, and a meditation on what it means in our culture to confront death. It is also a doctor's personal story about the moral dilemmas and ethical choices he faces working within the grey areas of the law. In this important book, Rodney Syme argues for the end of the unofficial 'conspiracy' of silence within the medical profession and the decriminalisation of voluntary euthanasia in Australia. Through Syme's determination to tell the stories of those who he has assisted to die with dignity, A Good Death also draws wider lessons of value for those who find themselves in a similar situation.

Bioethics is the application of ethics to the broad field of medicine, including the ethics of patient care, research, and public health. In this book, prominent authors from around the globe discuss the complexities of bioethics as they apply to our current world. Topics range from the philosophical bioethics of the evolution of thinking about marriage from a religious standpoint to the bioethics of radiation protection to value-based medicine and cancer screening for breast cancer. Bioethics in Medicine and Society is wide-ranging, with additional chapters on the ethics of geoengineering, complementary and alternative medicine, and end-of-life ethical dilemmas. Readers with find that the field of bioethics has broad implications throughout society from our most intimate interpersonal relationships to policies being implemented on a global scale.

By providing an interdisciplinary reading of advance directives regulation in international, European and domestic law, this book offers new insights into the most controversial legal issues surrounding the debate over dignity and autonomy at the end of life.

Medical futility is a controversial issue not only in its definition but also in its application. There are few books on the subject, and those in existence mostly focus on the situation in the United States. This title, however, provides extensive international perspectives on medical futility.This book will benefit healthcare professionals as well as health policy makers around the world. It allows them to see how different countries approach the issue of medical futility and their experiences in dealing with this issue. The complexity of the issue, and in particular how some countries innovatively address it in an ethically sound manner, is clearly presented.

This encyclopedia provides a premier reference guide for students, scholars, policy makers, and others interested in assessing the moral consequences of global interdependence and understanding the concepts and arguments that shed light on the myriad aspects of global justice.