Modern medical technology and therapeutic options are in constant development and are far from having reached their limits. Many healthcare workers, biomedical scientists, pastoral caregivers and also patients wonder what are the moral consequences are what are the constraints. From their expertise in the fields of medicine and ethics and from the perspective of the practice of healthcare, the authors offer a helping hand in answering these questions. Taking into account the most recent developments many actual questions are discussed. They are presented according to the phases of life where medical-ethical questions may arise. Well-argued answers to these questions and dilemmas are given, based on the teachings of the Catholic Church. May these provide for the needs of Catholic healthcare workers, and all people of good will, who are searching for sources of inspiration to assist in the formation of their views on healthcare and spirituality.

Completely updated and revised, the third edition of Catholic Health Care Ethics: A Manual for Practitioners sets the standard for Catholic bioethicists, physicians, nurses, and other health care workers. In thirty-nine chapters (many with subchapters), leading authors in their fields discuss a wide range of topics relevant to medicine and health care. The book has six parts covering foundational principles, health care ethics services, beginning-of-life issues, end-of-life issues, selected clinical issues, and institutional issues. Some highlights from the third edition include new entries on the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, certitude in moral decision-making, the principle of double effect, clinical ethics consultation, natural family planning, prenatal testing and diagnosis, care of fetal remains, challenges to neurological criteria, the use of ventilators, POLST, alkaline hydrolysis, opportunistic salpingectomy, so-called lethal prenatal diagnoses, transgenderism, and new age medicine. The volume continues to provide insightful information on the topics previously covered in the second edition, but with significant updates throughout.

The present volume is intended as a guide for ethics committees and their members. In actual fact it is a comprehensive, up-to-date compendium of Roman Catholic ethics and morals.-from Foreword.

This study focuses upon general texts of moral theology to investigate how Roman Catholic medical ethics emerged in North America as a developed and self-conscious discipline. It applies moralist Roman Catholic questions to the relatively new field of medical ethics.

Besides ethical questions raised at the beginning and the end of life, Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., discusses the ethics of the clinical encounter, human procreation, organ donation and transplantation, and biomedical research.

Contemporary Catholic Health Care Ethics, Second Edition, integrates theology, methodology, and practical application into a detailed and practical examination of the bioethical issues that confront students, scholars, and practitioners. Noted bioethicists Gerard Magill, Henk ten Have, and David F. Kelly contribute diverse backgrounds and experience that inform the richness of new material covered in this second edition. The book is organized into three sections: theology (basic issues underlying Catholic thought), methodology (how Catholic theology approaches moral issues, including birth control), and applications to current issues. New chapters discuss controversial end-of-life issues such as forgoing treatment, killing versus allowing patients to die, ways to handle decisions for incompetent patients, advance directives, and physician-assisted suicide. Unlike anthologies, the coherent text offers a consistent method in order to provide students, scholars, and practitioners with an understanding of ethical dilemmas as well as concrete examples to assist in the difficult decisions they must make on an everyday basis.

In a single convenient resource, this revised and updated edition of a classic text organizes and presents clearly the documents of the Catholic Church pertaining to medical ethics. Introductory chapters provide the context for interpreting the Church's teachings and theological values, guiding the reader in how to apply the teachings to particular ethical dilemmas and helping the reader to understand the role of conscience within the Catholic tradition. The teaching of the Church in regard to health care ethics is pertinent not only for health care professionals and students, but for all who are concerned about the common good of society. Medical Ethics examines specific teachings of the Church on over seventy issues in clinical and research ethics, including abortion, AIDS, artificial insemination, assisted suicide, cloning, contraception, euthanasia, gene therapy, health care reform, organ donation and transplantation, organizational ethics, stem cells, surrogate motherhood, and withholding and withdrawing life support. O'Rourke and Boyle bring this fourth edition up to the present day by incorporating recent papal documents regarding the social aspects of health care, assent to Church teaching, and the 2008 papal instruction Dignitas personae, an extremely influential document that illuminates such controversial dilemmas as prenatal adoption, frozen embryos, and genetic diagnosis.