Which Babies Shall Live?: Humanistic Dimensions of the Care of Imperiled Newborns (Contemporary Issues in Biomedicine, Ethics, and Society)

The fate of seriously ill newborns has captured the atten tion of the public, of national and state legislators, and of powerful interest groups. For the most part, the debate has been cast in the narrowest possible terms: "discrimination against the handicapped"; "physician authority"; "family autonomy." We believe that something much more profound is happening: the debate over the care of sick and dying babies appears to be both a manifestation of great changes in our feelings about infants, children, and families, and a reflection of deep and abiding attitudes toward the newborn, the handi capped, and perhaps other humans who are "less than" nor mal, rational adults. How could we cast some light on those feelings and attitudes that seemed to determine silently the course of the public debate? We chose to enlist the humanities-the dis players and critics of our cultural forms. Rather than closing down the public discussion, we wanted to open it up, to illuminate it with the light of history, religion, philosophy, literature, jurisprudence, and humanistically oriented sociol ogy. This book is a first effort to place the hotly contested Baby Doe debate into a broader cultural context.

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Caplan, Arthur L.

Murray, Thomas H. H.

Gardening & Landscape Design

Humana

Feeling Good and Doing Better: Ethics and Nontherapeutic Drug Use (Contemporary Issues in Biomedicine, Ethics, and Society)

The place of drugs in American society is a problem more apt to evoke diatribe than dialog. With the support of the Na tional Science Foundation's program on Ethics and Values in Science and Technology, and the National Endowment for the Humanities' program on Science, Technology, and Human Values, * The Hastings Center was able to sponsor such dialog as part of a major research into the ethics of drug use that spanned two years. We assembled a Research Group from leaders in the scientific, medical, legal, and policy com munities, leavened with experts in applied ethics, and brought them together several times a year to discuss the moral, legal and social issues posed by nontherapeutic drug use. At times we also called on other experts when we needed certain issues clarified. We did not try to reach a consensus, yet several broad areas of agreement emerged: That our society's response to nontherapeutic drug use has been irrational and inconsistent; that our attempts at control have been clumsy and ill-informed; that many complex moral values are entwined in the debate and cannot be reduced to a simple conflict between individual liberty and state paternalism. Of course each paper should be read as the statement of that particular author or authors. The views expressed in this book do not necessarily represent the views of The Hastings Center, the National Science Foundation, or the National En dowment for the Humanities.

Gaylin, Willard

MacKlin, Ruth

Science & Math

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