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- A Must Read
- unplugged: reclaiming our right to die in america
- The right-to-die debate is once again tackled
- A Book for Everyone
- A great read ... packed with helpful information
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Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America
William H. Colby
Manufacturer: AMACOM/American Management Association
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Similar Items:
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Long Goodbye: The Deaths of Nancy Cruzan
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The Case of Terri Schiavo: Ethics at the End of Life
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And a Time to Die: How American Hospitals Shape the End of Life
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Terri: The Truth
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Last Rights: Rescuing the End of Life from the Medical System
ASIN: 0814408826 |
Book Description
The time has come for a frank discussion about how we die. Unplugged is the blueprint for that talk.
Medical technology has helped mankind conquer tuberculosis, polio, and countless other once certain-death diseases. It has given us hope against cancer and AIDS, allowed heart and brain surgeries that have saved untold numbers of lives, and delivered us from the pain and crippling legacy of injury. Medical technology, it seems, is a never-ending string of miracles. But it is also a double-edged sword. More often than not, death today happens because of a decision to stop doing something, or to not do it at all. As the tragic life and death of Terri Schiavo so poignantly illustrated, universal definitions of life, death, nature, and many other concepts are elusive at best. Unplugged addresses the fundamental questions of the right-to-die debate, and discusses how the medical advances that bring so much hope and healing have also helped to create today's dilemma.
This compelling book explores recent high-profile cases, including that of Mrs. Schiavo, and illuminates the complex legal, ethical, medical, and deeply personal issues of a debate that ultimately affects us all. Compassionate and beautifully written, the book helps readers understand the implications of current laws and proposed legislation, various medical options (including hospice), and the typical end-of-life decisions we all must face in order to make informed decisions for ourselves and our loved ones.
Customer Reviews:
A Must Read.......2007-02-21
If you have read William Colby's book Nancy Cruzan, The Long Goodbye, you will find his latest book equally informative. Mr. Colby provides an excellent medical history that has brought us to our current debate about killing vs. allowing individuals to die. He shares recent cases and offers insight to both sides of the issue. This book should be read by anyone who has been faced with making end-of-life care decisions and by all who want to ensure that their end-of-life care is clearly understood.
unplugged: reclaiming our right to die in america.......2006-10-05
unplugged delves into timely and essential subject matter with an entertaining, informative, wondrful style of writing. colby's insight to this pertinent topic is beneficial universally, as we all must confront these circumstances at some point in our lives.
The right-to-die debate is once again tackled.......2006-08-07
The right-to-die debate is once again tackled; this time by a lawyer who represented Nancy Cruzan in the first right- to-die case heard by the Supreme Court. While Nancy Cruzan's struggles were chronicled in a prior book by Colby, Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right To Die In America offers a broader perspective on the topic, moving beyond Cruzan's struggle to offer answers to legal, ethical, medical and personal issues involved in the debate. Court records, interviews and the authors' own experiences lend to the discussion of current laws, proposed changes, and their effects on society.
A Book for Everyone.......2006-07-08
"Unplugged" is a book everyone who is going to die should read. It tells you what you need to do to make sure your wishes are respected when it comes to end-of-life decisions. Doing that will spare your loved ones unnecessary anguish. This book, believe it or not, is an engaging page turner and my 90-year-old mother just read it. We took its advice, talked about her wishes, and she now has a notarized health care power-of-attorney, giving us both much peace of mind. All this thanks to Colby's wonderfully written, timely, important book.
A great read ... packed with helpful information.......2006-07-04
"Unplugged" is superbly written and thoroughly researched. Colby provides an unbiased perspective on complex legal, medical, and ethical issues in terms easily understood by both the lay person and professional. This book is invaluable for anyone who cares about how they or their loved ones experience life - and death.
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Reproductive Health and Human Rights: Integrating Medicine, Ethics, and Law (Issues in Biomedical Ethics)
Rebecca J. Cook ,
Bernard M. Dickens , and
Mahmoud F. Fathalla
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0199241333 |
Book Description
The concept of reproductive health promises to play a crucial role in improving women's health and rights around the world. It was internationally endorsed by a United Nations conference in 1994, but remains controversial because of the challenge it presents to conservative agencies: it challenges policies of suppressing public discussion on human sexuality and regulating its private expressions. Reproductive Health and Human Rights is designed to equip healthcare providers and administrators to integrate ethical, legal, and human rights principles in protection and promotion of reproductive health, and to inform lawyers and women's health advocates about aspects of medicine and healthcare systems that affect reproduction. Rebecca Cook, Bernard Dickens, and Mahmoud Fathalla, leading international authorities on reproductive medicine, human rights, medical law, and bioethics, integrate their disciplines to provide an accessible but comprehensive introduction to reproductive and sexual health. They analyse fifteen case-studies of recurrent problems, focusing particularly on resource-poor settings. Approaches to resolution are considered at clinical and health system levels. They also consider kinds of social change that would relieve the underlying conditions of reproductive health dilemmas. Supporting the explanatory chapters and case-studies are extensive resources of epidemiological data, human rights documents, and research materials and websites on reproductive and sexual health. In explaining ethics, law, and human rights to healthcare providers and administrators, and reproductive health to lawyers and women's health advocates, the authors explore and illustrate limitations and dysfunctions of prevailing health systems and their legal regulation, but also propose opportunities for reform. They draw on the values and principles of ethics and human rights recognized in national and international legal systems, to guide healthcare providers and administrators, lawyers, governments, and national and international agencies and legal tribunals. Reproductive Health and Human Rights will be an invaluable resource for all those working to improve services and legal protection for women around the world. Updates to this book, and information on translations to French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Arabic are now available at www.law.utoronto.ca/faculty/cook/ReproductiveHealth.html
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- Perfect for classroom debate or library reference alike.
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Right to Die and Euthanasia (Library in a Book)
Lisa Yount
Manufacturer: Facts on File
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ASIN: 0816062757 |
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Perfect for classroom debate or library reference alike........2007-06-18
The 'Library in a Book' series is designed to be a first-stop research source on current issues, and thus Right to Die and Euthanasia is the perfect item of choice for the high school or college-level library studying euthanasia ethics and history. The Western world is divided on issues of euthanasia, involving both health care professionals and politicians in never-ending debates. This reader provides a history and analyzes important cases concerning euthanasia in the U.S., and is an essential starting point for understanding. Perfect for classroom debate or library reference alike.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Customer Reviews:
The clash of law and religion: Who owns our body parts?.......2000-10-12
E Richard Gold's Body Parts is 'must' reading for anyone interested in the patenting of genes or biological materials. Gold demonstrates that the law is moving inexorably in the direction of attending only to economic values, whereas historically and in most religious traditions, the human body serves many values outside of economics.
Customer Reviews:
Remarkable contribution on death with dignity .......2005-02-27
Raphael Cohen-Almagor offers a comprehensive, rich, and critically considered discussion about questions of death and the choice of death in the context of the medical practice.
This book is a remarkable contribution to the debate on death with dignity. It discussed a wide range of topics, including an original outlook on terminology at the end of life (for example, 'post-coma unawareness' is suggested instead of 'permanent vegetative state'); the question of autonomy; the sanctity-of life - quality of life debate; criticism of some extreme quality-of-life position; criticism of Ronald Dworkin's distinction between critical and experiential interests; active and passive euthanasia; the Dutch experience, and the Oregon Death with Dignity Act.
Cohen-Almagor's book is a complete, interdisciplinary discussion of the right to die with dignity. It may be of great interest to people coming from different experiences. Its language and methodology make it accessible to wide range of readers. Its exceptional merit is that it provides a balanced view that never renounces human life and human dignity.
Thorough and Humane Book.......2005-01-06
The Right to Die with Dignity offers a valid and up-to-date discussion on euthanasia. It contains three levels of analysis: ethical, medical and legal. On each Raphael Cohen-Almagor shows incredible thoroughness and exhaustiveness. In the book you find statistic data, court cases, examples and arguments for and against mercy killings. The book has many virtues: the argumentation is rational, clear, simple and above all with a remarkable human approach. It is also an easy read, for those who meet the questions of morality and legislation of euthanasia for the first time, but also for those who have some experience in this subject.
A Book written in a lively prose and moral passion.......2001-12-20
A nuanced discussion of some of the most difficult issues in health, law, and bioethics today written in a lively prose and with a clear sense of moral passion. The international perspective is particularly useful and, undoubtedly, Cohen-Almagor's arguments and conclusions will provoke discussion
An Intellectual Analysis of End-of-Life.......2001-12-20
Cohen-Almagor uses insightful examples and applies his penetrating intellect to shed light upon some of the most difficult choices that arise at the end of life
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HIV and AIDS: Testing, Screening, and Confidentiality (Issues in Biomedical Ethics)
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 019924314X |
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The series: General Editors: John Harris, University of Manchester; Soren Holm, University of Manchester. Consulting Editor: Ranaan Gillon, Director, Imperial College Health Service, London. North American Consulting Editor: Bonnie Steinbock, Professor of Philosophy, SUNY, Albany. The late twentieth century has witnessed dramatic technological developments in biomedical science and the delivery of health care, and these developments have brought with them important social changes. All too often ethical analysis has lagged behind these changes. The purpose of this series is to provide lively, up-to-date, and authoritative studies for the increasingly large and diverse readership concerned with issues in biomedical ethics--not just health care trainees and professionals, but also social scientists, philosophers, lawyers, social workers, and legislators. The series will feature both single-author and multi-author books, short and accessible enough to be widely read, each of them focused on an issue of outstanding current importance and interest. Philosophers, doctors, and lawyers from several countries already feature among the contributors to the series. It promises to become the leading channel for the best original work in this burgeoning field. This book: Testing and screening for HIV and AIDS give rise to ethical, legal, and social issues of the most controversial and delicate kind. An international team of eighteen doctors, philosophers, and lawyers present a fresh and thorough discussion of these issues; they aim to show the way to practical advances but also to give an accessible guide to the debates for readers new to them. The contributors pay particular attention to the sensitive nature of the information yielded by a test for HIV antibody. They consider such questions as these: Are we under an obligation to disclose our HIV status if known? Can there be a moral justification for the breaching of confidentiality in certain circumstances? Should health care professionals be forced to undergo HIV testing? Is there a right to remain in ignorance of one's HIV status? Consideration of such questions illuminates not only public policy and medical practice in connection with HIV and AIDS, but also broader issues about professional ethics and individual rights in other medical and social contexts. The breadth and depth of the research represented and the lucidity of the arguments put forward make this a key resource for academic researchers and healthcare professionals alike.
Download Description
"
The Terri Schiavo case was a key battle in a larger political struggle over abortion, stem-cell research, physician-assisted suicide, gay rights, and the appointment of federal judges. The religious Right chose to make it a national spectacle because they thought they could win. They were wrong. But there are many more battles to come.
Jon Eisenberg, who served as one of the lead attorneys on Michael Schiavo's side, exposes the religious Right's strategies and follows the money trail to reveal how they are organized, who is funding the movement, and where we can expect future legal maneuvers to combat the American traditions of autonomy and freedom.
Jon Eisenberg has experienced the family struggle of removing a feeding tube from a loved one and witnessed firsthand the Florida drama that will continue to have national legal and political consequences for years to come. What tactics can we expect to see in courtrooms and state legislatures all across this country in the days ahead? Who is behind the funding and what do they hope to accomplish and when? What are the religious and bioethical issues that are at the center of these debates and how will they affect future legal battles? Using Terri gives us a behind-the-scenes look at what happened -- and what's coming.
"
Customer Reviews:
Dissagree With Any Who Agrees With Michael Schiavo!!!!.......2006-08-11
My problem is, is that I didn't read any of the books. But just ordered one & waiting on it. I do feel that the people who think Michael Schiavo was thinking of the best interest of his wife, was only for his own personal needs. He wanted to move on with his life, he should have done it in a different way. He should of turned everything over to "Terry Schindler's" family. I am a CNA, and I have taken care of people who have had feeding tubes & did not feel they were in a vegetative state. When rolling them over in bed, from side to side as you are suppose to do every 2 hours, they look at you in different ways, they make noises if you ACCIDENTLY hurt them when turning them. They are people just like us. Just because Terry was supposevly running out Michaels money, that did not belong to him in the first place, was no reason for that Son of B*^ch to make her suffer the way she did. If Terry was going to die, she would have died a long time ago.....ON HER OWN!!! She was just to strong of a woman to NOT GIVE UP!! And as far as I see it, there is no reason to rate any of the books if you had followed the NEWS. That's what I did. It didn't take Michael to long to find another woman and move on with his life, no matter if he was there with Terry everyday. Michael was just lucky enough to find another woman to put up with that, or she was just looking for the same thing Michael was looking for. And I feel that was the rest of Terrys money, so they could enjoy there life with Terrys money. I think i've said enough......everyone needs to remember, "What Goes Around, Comes Around!" Michaels day is coming & when it does......Terry will be waiting!
The right to murder........2006-04-16
Terri Schiavo wasn't allowed to die--she was slowly and painfully murdered. If she was in a PVS, why was she given morphine as she lay dehydrating and starving? People who are in a vegetative state are not supposed to feel pain--right!? Murderers are put to death in a more humane way than Terri was. They pass within minutes of their humane lethal injections. Terri suffered for two weeks until she died. And, since when is giving food and water artificial life support!!! I care for an 8-year old mentally challenged girl and I feed her strictly through a feeding tube. Terri was not on a respirator.
If you want the real truth about this case, first read SILENT WITNESS by Mark Fuhrman. It is an unbiased account of the Terri Schiavo case. Next, I recomment A LIFE THAT MATTERS by Terri's family. There has been so many lies and misconceptions about Terri's condition. One person and one person only decided Terri's fate--Juge Greer. One person should not have all that power. There was overwhelming evidence that Terri was not a "vegetable" and he didn't care. Please read the books I have suggested. If it is illegal to commit suiside, why is it legal to starve and dehydrate a defenseless human being? It's one thing to turn off a respirator, but to kill someone in the manner they did Terri is horrific. Didn't someone named Hitler do that across Europe several years ago?
Christine
A moving and frightening book.......2006-04-14
I believe strongly that people should be able to decide for themselves, to the extent that it is possible, how much medical care they want. This goes both for people who want no heroic measures and people who want everything possible to be done. One of the most upsetting things about this story is that a number of people trying to keep Terri Schiavo on the feeding tube, including her parents, admitted that they didn't really care what she wanted, even if she had left even more specific instructions. Does the reviewer who professed to be distressed by the arrogance of Michael Schiavo, et al., apply the same standards to the Schindlers and others trying to warp the law and established practice? They were certainly convinced that they had a direct pipeline to God. The reviewer who claimed that he had no problem with the decision to remove the tube, but felt that Eisenberg was unfairly attacking Christian conservatives should give more thought to what they did. Did this person stand up and say, "You're not speaking for me when you claim that God requires extraordinary measures"? Eisenberg pointed out that a number of Christians, even conservative Christians, were puzzled by the reluctance to let Terri Schiavo go to God.
I already have advanced directives, and after this, I think that I will try to strengthen them.
Eisenberg's account of events was compassionate, careful and fair. In all that I have read about this, I have not seen any good evidence that Michael Schiavo was a bad husband while his wife was living with him, or failed to do the best for her until it became clear there was no hope. I cannot understand the argument that it is playing God to remove the tube any more than it was playing God to use it in the first place. Terri Schiavo would have died naturally more than 15 years ago.
There were times when I thought that perhaps Michael Schiavo should have turned care over to his in-laws, since they felt so strongly, but that is only because I don't think that Terri Schiavo was alive enough to care. I don't judge him for that, however. I know what it is to decide with family members when treatment should be ended since death can only be briefly postponed. I don't know what it is like to have to watch someone in that condition for more than fifteen years, convinced that they would not have wanted it to happen that way.
I hope that I am never the cause of putting my own family through such character assassinations, public intrusions and sufferings.
Simplistic, mean spirited with no redeeming value.......2005-12-19
In "Using Terri", Jon Eisenberg attempts to provide the reader with insight into the legal, ethical, moral, and medical aspects of the tragic death of Terri Schiavo. He falls far short of the mark on all of them. In his November 6, 2005 review for the New York Times William Saletan succinctly sums up the book: ""Using Terri" is just another use of Terri." Eisenberg begins with the death of his 79 year old aunt Ros trying to draw a parallel between her and Terri. The situations could not be more different. No one, not Eisenberg, nor her two brothers had any desire to care for Ros. Her case is indeed tragic and agonizing. Had she not been dehydrated to death her fate would most probably have been to remain institutionalized and uncared for until she finally succumbed to a sad end. A very different fate awaited Terri were she to be delivered into the care of her parents and siblings. She would have received the best loving care and devotion that her parents could lavish on her; she would have most probably lived a long life, giving love to all those around her and perhaps even being able to receive the love that was lavished upon her. But Eisenberg and the bioethics community would have us believe that Terri's life was a life "not worthy of life". They are absolutely certain, beyond all doubt, that a severely brain damaged person is, in fact not a person at all. He or she is simply a vegetable to be treated as an inanimate object. Vegetables, like pet rocks, and tomatoes can never receive love. Vegetables do not have, nor should they have, access to the rights and privileges that "normal" people take for granted. This certainty permeates Eisenberg's book at every level and every page. Symptomatic of this certainty is the obscenely arrogant inscription placed by Michael on Terri's tombstone which reads "Born December 3, 1963, departed this earth February 25 1989, at peace March 31, 2005." What Eisenberg and so many in the bioethics community conveniently forget is that all too often the most horrendous acts of cruelty and evil are committed by those that, like them, are absolutely certain that what they are doing is good and just. Jacob Bronowski devotes a chapter in his classic work "The Ascent of Man" to the issue of knowledge and uncertainty. In describing the Nazi horror he stands in swamp outside the crematorium at Auschwitz and declares: "When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods... We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power."
If you feel you must read this book I would at least urge you to exam impartially the other side. Read Wesley Smith; read David Galenter, read Dr. Daniel Eisenberg; read Jacob Bronowski; read Rita Marker, and yes read father Frank Pavone whom Eisenberg so brutal and unjustly demonizes. They are my heroes. And question Eisenberg's statements, his description of the events, his conclusions and especially his demonizing of those who disagree with him. Sometimes one's motives and philosophies can be revealed in the most trivial passages. There is one such sentence that especially struck me in "Using Terri"; on p 191 Eisenberg describes the scene at the hospice on the last day of Terri life: "A woman blew on a shofar - a ritual horn sounded by the ancient Hebrews during battle." As a Jew and as human being I find such appalling ignorance of my religion deeply insulting. But in a wider sense perhaps it is symptomatic of Eisenberg's utter contempt for everything that does not fit into a purely secular framework and does not worship at the altar of the false god of autonomy.
The Thinking Person's Guide to the Schiavo Case.......2005-10-24
If you believe anything that Jeb Bush, George Bush, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Jesse Jackson, Robert Schindler, Mary Schindler, Bobby Schindler or Suzanne Schindler has said about the Terri Schiavo case, don't read this book. Actually, if you believe anything those people have said about the Schiavo case, you're not smart enough to read this book. Jon Eisenberg is an appellate attorney whose stock-in-trade is fact. Want to know who funded the Schindlers through bogus appeal after bogus appeal? Read Using Terri. Want to see how the judicial process can be undermined by the same people who scream about activist judges? Read Using Terri. It's an insider's view of what went on, written by a lawyer who has the ability to make it painfully understandable. It's worth paying retail for Using Terri!
Average customer rating:
- Lacking clear thinking....
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Set No Limits: A Rebuttal to Daniel Callahan's Proposal to Limit Health Care for the Elderly
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society With "a Response to My Critics"
ASIN: 0252018605 |
Customer Reviews:
Lacking clear thinking...........2001-11-25
Any book that's a "reaction" to another book (in this case Daniel Callahan's "False Hopes : Why America's Quest for Perfect Health Is a Recipe for Failure"), should be read very carefully. In this case, it shouldn't be read at all. This book is not "full of crap" as some people might say, but it obviously lacks clear thinking. However it's worth a read just to see how illogical it is......Not worth your money.
Book Description
Bioethics was "born in the USA" and the values American bioethics embrace are based on American law, including liberty and justice. This book crosses the borders between bioethics and law, but moves beyond the domestic law/bioethics struggles for dominance by exploring attempts to articulate universal principles based on international human rights. The isolationism of bioethics in the US is not tenable in the wake of scientific triumphs like decoding the human genome, and civilizational tragedies like international terrorism. Annas argues that by crossing boundaries which have artificially separated bioethics and health law from the international human rights movement, American bioethics can be reborn as a global force for good, instead of serving mainly the purposes of U.S. academics. This thesis is explored in a variety of international contexts such as terrorism and genetic engineering, and in U.S. domestic disputes such as patient rights and market medicine. The citizens of the world have created two universal codes: science has sequenced the human genome and the United Nations has produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The challenge for American bioethics is to combine these two great codes in imaginative and constructive ways to make the world a better, and healthier, place to live.
Customer Reviews:
Airing the disability rights perspective.......2001-03-09
(A longer version of this review ran in the January 2001 issue of Ragged Edge magazine.) Does prenatal testing for genetic defects "send a message" to disabled people? Adrienne Asch, the Henry L. Luce Professor of Biology, Ethics and Reproduction at Wellesley College, insists that it does. For two years, Asch and Hastings Center bioethicist Eric Parens engaged a group of scholars, philosophers, ethicists, biologists, physicians, sociologists and educators under the auspices of the Hastings Center to grapple with that question, and the disability rights perspective on prenatal testing in general. This book is the product of that project.
After listening to all the opinions expressed by project members, Asch writes in an essay late in the book that she has not changed her mind. She says that people who choose to abort based on a diagnosis of disability are "allowing a single trait to stand in for the whole, to obliterate the whole." People like Baily -- and they are in the large majority in society -- simply do not believe that aborting a fetus because it will likely have a disability "sends a message" that is bigoted; most do not believe that it sends any message at all. Many do not agree that the provision of more accurate information about disabilities or about living with particular disabilities would make any great difference in their decision to abort a fetus they feared carried a "defect." Even knowing about disabled people and their lives, she would still not want to bear a disabled child if it could be avoided, says Baily. Nor do they buy the "any/particular" distinction articulated by Asch, who has been writing about the disability perspective on reproductive choice for decades. The "any/particular distinction" refers to the difference between the decision to simply not have any child at all at the time -- the decision of someone who becomes pregnant when they were not planning a family and thus seeks an abortion, for example -- and the decision to abort a particular fetus, even when the woman in fact wants a child, when prenatal testing has revealed disability in the fetus. The project, funded in part by a grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, did not reach unanimity on any of the "major claims" of the disability rights movement -- not after five intense two-day intense meetings, not despite ongoing email correspondence among participants, notwithstanding meetings with members of the Society for Disability Studies. So are we simply at that juncture in history in which almost no one outside one's tiny community of thought believes one's critique; before one's ideas are accepted? Is this what it was like in the 1800s to hear perfectly nice, logical people say things which we now we see as hopelessly racist? It's hard to tell. This is an important, though academic, book. It lays out both the disability rights critique from Asch, Marsha Saxton and others, and the reasons why people just don't "buy" the argument that life with a disability is alright, which is really what it comes right down to.
"Using prenatal tests to prevent the births of babies with disabilities seems to be self-evidently good to many people," Asch writes. No matter that critics argue that these beliefs stem from unexamined attitudes about disability; this project shows that when the attitudes are examined they are often found to be fine attitudes -- by those who hold them. In her piercingly honest essay "Somewhere A Mockingbird" (which also appeared in the anthology Bigger Than The Sky: Disabled Women on Parenting (Ragged Edge, Jan./ Feb. 2000), Deborah Kent reports what happens when she and her husband begin to plan having a child, knowing it may be born with Kent's genetic blindness: Despite the closeness of the couple, writes Kent, she had failed to convince her husband, even after their years together, "that it is really okay to be blind." "I will always believe that blindness is a neutral trait, neither to be prized nor shunned. Very few people, including those dearest to me, share that conviction... They cannot fully relinquish their negative assumptions...." "Though they dread blindness as a fate to be avoided at almost any cost," she writes of her family and friends, "they give me their trust and respect. I don't understand how they live without discomfort amid such contradictions."(emphasis ours.) Yet many of the project's participants live with this contradiction seemingly quite well and without question. If there is a theme to be taken away from this volume, it is that society can quite easily live without examining such contradictions. In one of the most sobering essays in the book, Nancy Press writes that "certain silences in the public discourse have actually enabled the routinization and rapid growth of prenatal testing,.... by obscuring or limiting the need for public debate about two topics about which Americans are deeply conflicted but which lie at the heart of prenatal testing: abortion and disability." This book arrives at a time in our society when prenatal testing is becoming routine -- and a duty. As tests for finding ever more genetic traits and predispositions become ever easier to administer, our country's legal hubris being what it is, women will be told to get them done, or else. Sociologist Dorothy Wertz contends that "even if some lines might be drawn in practice they will not make a difference since market and political forces will determine which prenatal tests are offered and in what kind of an atmosphere they will be offered." Biologist Pilar Ossorio points out that "when prenatal tests become part of routine [medical] practice, courts will find that physicians have a duty to offer them." Detailing the strange and horrific outcome, today's "wrongful birth" and "wrongful life" lawsuits (in which the disabled child argues before the court "that her life is worse than non-existence"), Ossorio's chapter is a sober reminder of the road we head down when we reject the disability rights critique of prenatal testing.
A Must Read for those Interested in Disability Rights.......2000-11-28
This fascinating and thought-provoking book should be read by anyone interested in disability rights. It presents a variety of views on a challenging topic. The book deals with philosophical issues in understandable terms, and argues for a new paradigm for consideration of prenatal testing.
Different chapters are written by various authors from different backgrounds. Physicians, professors, parents, those with disabilities, therapists and lawyers all contribute to this multifaceted approach to whether or not prenatal testing devalues those with disabilities. Social factors and medical factors are discussed with clarity. This book will cause the reader to question the basis for their pre-concieved beliefs about what it means to have a disability, and will encourage them to look at this issue in a more thoughtful way.
I found this book difficult to put down, and have recommended it to several friends.
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