MEDICAL ETHICS: Moral and Legal Conflicts in Health Care

This entry in the ""Issues for the 90s"" series emphasizes issues that teen-agers find relevant: Can a minor refuse chemotherapy? Can courts force an adolescent to get permission for an abortion? Who has rights, fetus or mother? Where do moral values fit in? Free-lance writer Jussim explains key concepts that ethicists sweat over (e.g., beneficence and paternalism); widely reported cases like the Karen Ann Quinlan story form the background of each balanced investigation. Jussim makes it clear that it's always hard to make a decision, whether the issue is surrogate motherhood, economic or social factors in transplants, or the possibility that doctors may not be required to take every patient. Approaches of philosophers and medical ethicists are incorporated here while public cases take center stage. Referring in a more focused way to behind-the-scenes cooperation between ethicists and health professionals might have made this interesting book still more compellingly provocative. Notes, sources, and relevant organizations with each chapter. Appendix listing eight landmark court cases; index.