(Reflective Bioethics.) Edited by Margaret P. Battin, Rosamond Rhodes, and Anita Silvers. 454 pp. New York, Routledge, 1998. $21.99. ISBN 0-415-92003-5.
In the current debate about physician-assisted suicide, proponentsargue that legalization would respect contemporary values ofpatient autonomy and that the practice, if legalized, wouldbe limited in application. Opponents maintain that physician-assistedsuicide would violate contemporary values because it would beapplied both coercively and extensively. Most of the essaysin this collection acknowledge that physician-assisted suicidewould indeed constitute a change in contemporary values andthat the practice might become widespread; nonetheless, theyconvincingly show that these propositions are not in themselvessufficient ground either to support or to oppose its legalization.These essays, most by philosophers, thus . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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