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Article: Our right to death: how medical breakthroughs challenge easy answers about suicide.(Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America)(Book review)
- Article from:
- Reason
- Article date:
- February 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Reason Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America, by William H. Colby, New York: AMACOM, 272 pages, $24.95
IF YOU BELIEVE every person should have control of his or her mind and body, it probably seems easy to leap to a quick, smug opinion about "our right to die in America." Of course individuals have a right to die, the standard individualist position goes; the decision to end a terminal illness with the assistance of a physician should be left to the doctor and the patient.
William H. Colby's new book complicates such straightforward conclusions. Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America shows us ethical gray areas that are not easily elided. ...