The modern art of dying : a history of euthanasia in the United States / Shai J. Lavi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lavi, Shai Joshua, 1970-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Euthanasia--United States--History.

Euthanasia.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

x, 226 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2005]

Summary:

How we die reveals much about how we live. In this provocative book, Shai Lavi traces the history of euthanasia in the United States to show how changing attitudes toward death reflect new and troubling ways of experiencing pain, hope, and freedom.

Lavi begins with the historical meaning of euthanasia as signifying "an easeful death." Over time, he shows, the term came to mean a death blessed by the grace of God, and later, medical hastening. Lavi illustrates these changes with compelling accounts of changes at the deathbed. He takes us from early nineteenth-century deathbeds governed by religion to the medicalization of death and the prominance of the physician at the deathbed to the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. Unlike previous books, which have focused on law and technique as explanations for the rise of euthanasia, this book asks why law and technique have come to play such a central role in the way we die. What is at stake in the modern way of dying is not human progress, but rather a fundamental change in the way we experience life in the face of death, Lavi argues. In attempting to gain control over death, he maintains, we may unintentionally have ceded control to policymakers and bio-scientific enterprises.

Contents:

Introduction: The Ethics of the Deathbed: Euthanasia from Art to Technique 1

Chapter 1 The Holy Craft of Dying: The Birth of the Modern Art of Dying 14

Chapter 2 Medical Euthanasia: From Aiding the Dying to Hastening Death 41

Chapter 3 Legalizing Euthanasia: The Role of Law and the Rule of Technique 75

Chapter 4 Euthanasia as Public Policy: The Euthanasia Society of America 99

Chapter 5 Lethal Dosing: Technique beyond the Law 126

Chapter 6 Mercy Killing: The Limits of Technique 144

Epilogue: Art and Technique, Death and Freedom 163

Appendix Mercy Killing: Case History 173.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-221) and index.

ISBN:

0691102635

OCLC:

56334383