Synopses & Reviews
This rich collection provides an in-depth look at major cases that have defined and shaped the field of medical ethics. Popular among teachers and students alike, it contains more detail than most casebooks and enriches each famous (or infamous) case with extensive historical and contextual background. Each case is illuminated by careful discussion of pertinent philosophical theories and legal and ethical issues. Classic Cases in Medical Ethics is also a natural complement to Pence's Classic Works In Medical Ethics. A brand-new chapter 1 provides an overview of ethical theories and moral reasoning, discusses common mistakes in moral reasoning, and gives an historical overview of ethical theories and medical ethics. The focus of Chapter 4, Physician-Assisted Dying, has been changed from Dr. Kevorkian to Oregon’s legalization. Chapter 5 on assisted reproduction now goes far beyond baby Louise Brown’s in vitro fertilization and discusses up-to-date issues such as egg donation, choice of embryos, and the possibility of human cloning.
Synopsis
This rich collection, popular among teachers and students alike, provides an in-depth look at major cases that have shaped the field of medical ethics. The book presents each famous (or infamous) case using extensive historical and contextual background, and then proceeds to illuminate it by careful discussion of pertinent philosophical theories and legal and ethical issues.
About the Author
Gregory Pence is one of the pioneering bioethicists of America. Having taught for thirty years in a medical school, he has seen many past prophecies of doom fail. He is optimistic about biotechnology.
He is internationally famous for defending cloning and genetically modified food against bioLuddites who oppose research on stem cells and cloning. Because of his views, his talks have been picketed by Greenpeace and anti-cloning zealots.
His Classic Cases in Medical Ethics: Accounts of the Cases that Shaped Medical Ethics, 4th ed., 2003, is one of the standard textbooks of bioethics. His Who's Afraid of Human Cloning? (1998) is already regarded as a classic in bioethics for its rigorous attack on opponents of cloning. His Cloning After Dolly: Who's STILL Afraid of Human Cloning? will appear in late 2004. His Designer Food: Mutant Harvest or Breadbasket of the World? won a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2003.
He doesn't think the sky will fall if a cloned baby is born. In opposing laws against cloning, he was asked to testify in 2001 before Congress and in 2002 before the California Senate.
Constantly in demand for national television, Pence has been interviewed on Bobby Battista's "Talk Back Live" with Bobby Battista, "The Point" with Gretta von Susteren on CNN, "The Early Show with Bryant Gumbel" on CBS, "Wolf Blitzer's Washington" on CNN, as well as on National Public Radio's "Marketplace" and its "Weekend Edition." He has also been interviewed by TIME magazine, the New York Times, and most national publications. He has published in Newsweek, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Pence has given the Soundings Lecture at Castleton State College, VT, the Thornton Lecture at Alma College, MI, the Seidman Trust Lecture at Rhodes College, TN, and the Hughes Memorial Lecture at West Liberty State College in WVA. He has talked at Princeton, Yale, and Stanford. He has given keynote talks about cloning at universities in Portugal, London, Switzerland, and Australia.
Pence teaches at the medical school at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB), where he also directs a program for gifted undergraduates pre-admitted to UAB medical school. There, he has been voted Best Teacher.
He grew up in Washington, D.C., was graduated from the College of William and Mary cum laude in Philosophy, and earned his doctorate from New York University in 1974, where he worked on his dissertation under bioethicist Peter Singer, now at Princeton University.
Table of Contents
PrefaceCHAPTER 1: Moral Reasoning and Ethical Theories in Medical Ethics Common Mistakes in Moral ReasoningOther Aspects of Moral ReasoningEthical Theories and Medical Ethics: An Historical OverviewPART ONE: CLASSIC CASES ABOUT DEATH AND DYINGCHAPTER 2: Comas: Karen Quinlan and Nancy CruzanThe Quinlan CaseThe Cruzan CaseEthical Issues: From Brain Death to Medical FutilityUpdateCHAPTER 3: Requests to Die: Elizabeth Bouvia and Larry McAfeeBackground: PERSPECTIVES ON SUICIDEThe Bouvia caseThe McAfee caseEthical Issues: From Autonomy to Social PrejudiceUpdateCHAPTER 4: Physician-Assisted Dying: Oregon’s LegalizationBackground: Ancient Greeks, Nazis, Holland, and HospiceDr. KevorkianRecent Legal DecisionsOregon’s LegalizationEthical Issues: Direct Arguments Against Killing, Indirect Arguments Against Killing, Empirical and Conceptual Slippery SlopesPART TWO: CLASSIC CASES ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF LIFECHAPTER 5: Assisted Reproduction: Louise Brown and Beyond Background: In Vitro FertilizationLouise Brown's BirthEthical Issues: From Media Sensationalism to Harm to EmbryosUpdateNew Kinds of Assisted Reproduction and New Ethical Issues: Embryos, Multiple Births, Regulation of Assisted Reproduction Clinics, Egg Transfer, Identity of Donors of GametesSpecial Section: The Ethics of Cloning HumansCHAPTER 6: Surrogacy: Baby MBackground: SurrogacyThe Baby M CaseEthical Issues: From Definitions of Motherhood to ExploitationUpdateCommercialization of Reproductive ServicesCHAPTER 7: Abortion: Kenneth EdelinBackground: History, Sherry Finkbine, Humanae Vitae, Roe v. WadeThe Edelin CaseEthical Issues: From Personhood to ViabilityRelated Issues: Antiabortion movements, fetal-tissue research, emergency Contraception, maternal-fetal conflictsLegal Trends and DecisionsUpdateCHAPTER 8: Letting Impaired Newborns Die: Baby Jane DoeBackground: History, Preceding Cases, and the Baby Doe RulesThe Baby Jane Doe CaseEthical Issues: From Selfishness to Personhood of Impaired NeonatesUpdateLegal TrendsPART THREE - CLASSIC CASES ABOUT RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENTCHAPTER 9: Animal Subjects: The Philadelphia Head-Injury Study on PrimatesBackground: Animals in ResearchALF vs. University of Pennsylvania: the Head-Injury StudyEthical Issues: From Speciesism to Scientific MeritThe Silver Spring Monkeys CaseUpdateCHAPTER 10: Human Subjects: The Tuskegee Syphilis StudyBackground: Josef Mengele, the Nuremberg Code, American Military ResearchThe Tuskegee StudyEthical Issues: Racism, Informed Consent, and Harm to SubjectsUpdate: Other Controversial American Medical Research on Captive PopulationsThe Tuskegee Study and Prevention of Vertical Transmission of HIV in AfricaCHAPTER 11: Organ Transplants: Christiaan Barnard and the First Heart TransplantBackground: The Path towards TransplantsThe First Heart TransplantEthical Issues: From Competition to be First to Quality of LifeUpdateCHAPTER 12: Artificial Hearts: Barney ClarkBackground: Steps Toward Artificial HeartsBarney Clark’s Artificial HeartEthical Issues: From Therapeutic Privilege to CostsUpdateCHAPTER 13: Allocation of Artificial and Transplantable Organs: The God CommitteeBackground: Organs as Scarce ResourcesSeattle’s “God Committee”Ethical Issues: From Social Worth to the Medical CommonsUpdateCHAPTER 14: Infants and Medical Research: Baby Fae and Baby TheresaBackground: Xenografts The Case of Baby Fae Ethical Issues: From Animal Rights to Informed ConsentUpdateBackground: Anencephaly and Organ Donation Baby Theresa: The Patient and the Controversy Ethical Issues: From Infants to Congenital Brain DeathUpdatePART FOUR - CLASSIC CASES ABOUT INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND THE PUBLIC GOODCHAPTER 15: Involuntary Psychiatric Commitment: Joyce Brown Background: Historical OverviewThe Case of Joyce Brown Ethical Issues: From Criteria of Benefit to IdeologyLegal IssuesUpdateCHAPTER 16: Presymptomatic Testing for Genetic Disease: Nancy WexlerBackground: Genetics and EugenicsNancy Wexler and the Test for Huntington’s DiseaseEthical Issues: From “Toxic” Knowledge to Genetic DiscriminationEthical Issues in Testing for Genes for Breast CancerUpdateCHAPTER 17: AIDS and Mandatory Testing for HIV: Kimberly BergalisBackground: Epidemics, Plagues, and AIDSKimberly Bergalis: A Death from AIDSEthical Issues: From Privacy to HIV ExceptionalismLegal IssuesUpdateCHAPTER 18: Reforming the American Medical System: Expanding Medicare?Background: Problems of Medical Care in the United StatesThe Clinton Health Care PlanIs Expanding Medicare the Answer?Libertarian Critiques of Expanding MedicareEthical Issues: From Community/Experience Rating to Rawlsian JusticeUpdateNOTESNAME INDEXSUBJECT INDEX