A thoughtful appraisal of how the courts have responded to right-to-die issues. Although the Supreme Court has held that there's a constitutionally protected ``right to die,'' this right is not absolute, for the state has an interest in protecting and preserving life. Urofsky (History & Law/Virginia Commonwealth University; A Conflict of Rights, 1991, etc.) examines the balancing that takes place between these often conflicting interests. He looks at the now-familiar Karen Ann Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan, and Baby Jane Doe cases, as well as lesser-known but equally difficult ones. Although he focuses on how the law has tackled the right to die, Urofsky also glances at theology's attempts to deal with the problem, and he summarizes the views of Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and various non-Western religions on suicide and euthanasia. He looks at how the law has regarded mercy killings; the rights of the incompetent (e.g., those in comas and handicapped newborns); and even the rights of convicts on death row to refuse to appeal their sentences. Advance directives (``living wills'') and proxy statements giving durable power of attorney to another to make health-care decisions are also explored (sample forms are included), along with some caveats about meeting individual state requirements. Urofsky makes clear why doctors and hospitals, anxious to protect themselves from liability, often insist on procedural safeguards that obstruct the patient's personal autonomy. To those who argue that the courts are not the proper place for making the tough decisions about life and death, Urofsky asks where else a society based on the rule of law can turn. A cool appraisal of the legal standing of the right to die, warmed by human stories that linger in the memory.
Pub Date: May 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-684-19344-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1993
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508629-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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