Dignity & Dying: a Christian Appraisal ( )

Publisher Marketing: Twenty leading experts in the bioethics debate here engage matters of dignity and dying from a Christian perspective. The book begins with essays by David Schiedermayer, Arlene Miller, and Gregory Waybright that root the book in the experience of dying itself. This is followed by contributions from Nigel Cameron, John Dunlop, Marsha Fowler, and Allen Verhey on the topics that provide the guiding vision for approaches to dignity and dying: autonomy, death, suffering, and faithfulness. Four of the most pressing end-of-life challenges-forgoing treatment, medical futility, definition of death, and assisted suicide/euthanasia-are then examined by John Kilner, Christopher Hook, Holly Vautier, and Edmund Pellegrino. The next section, with contributions from Ben Mitchell, Jerome Wernow, Arthur Dyck, and Henk Jochemsen, is devoted to investigations of key settings where people have wrestled with these challenges: Nazi Germany; Oregon; North American legal systems; and the Netherlands. Finally, the book concludes with discussions of five potentially constructive alternatives to the premature ending of life: hospice care (by Martha Twaddle); long-term care (by James Thobaben); wise advocacy (by James Reitman); parish nursing (by Norma Small); and congregational ministry (by Dennis Hollinger). Contributor Bio:  Kilner, John F John F. Kilner holds the endowed Forman Chair of Christian Ethics and Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and serves as the director of bioethics degree programs at Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois. Contributor Bio:  Pellegrino, Edmund D, M. D. Edmund D. Pellegrino, M. D., is professor emeritus of medicine and medical ethics and adjunct professor of philosophy at Georgetown University. Contributor Bio:  Miller, Arlene B Arlene B. Miller (R. N., Ph. D.) is retired from the Department of Nursing at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. She continues to teach occasional classes there. Her books include Values in Conflict and Called to Care.