Final Acts: Death, Dying, and the Choices We Make

Contents

v CONTENTS Preface vii Introduction 1 PART ONE Personal Stories 13 Notes on My Dying 19 RUTHANN ROBSON Live Longer or Live Better? 29 JUNE BINGHAM “Life which is ours to know just once” 33 NANCY BARNES Caregiving Beulah: A Relentless Challenge 55 SUSAN PERLSTEIN E-mails to Family and Friends: Claude and Maxilla—Declining Gently 67 SARA M. EVANS Whose Death Is It, Anyway? 91 CAROL K. OYSTER The Family Tree 111 JEAN LEVITAN Elegy for an Optimist 123 MIMI SCHWARTZ Buddhist Reflections on Life and Death: A Personal Memoir 126 ALAN POPE CONTENTS vi Death as My Colleague 139 MARY JUMBELIC PART TWO Perspectives 149 The Transformation of Death in America 163 STEPHEN P. KIERNAN Unintended Consequences: Hospice, Hospitals, and the Not-So-Good Death 183 KATHRYN TEMPLE The Hospital Ethics Committee: Solving Medical Dilemmas 204 NATALIE R. HANNON Ethical Principles for End-of-Life Decision Making 220 CANDACE CUMMINS GAUTHIER Life or Death: Who Gets to Choose? 238 CHERYLYNN MACGREGOR Empowering Patients at the End of Life: Law, Advocacy, Policy 252 KATHRYN L. TUCKER Dying Down Under: From Law Reform to the Peaceful Pill 268 PHILIP NITSCHKE AND FIONA STEWART Ageism and Late-Life Choices 288 MARGARET CRUIKSHANK Physician-Assisted Suicide: Why Both Sides Are Wrong 301 IRA BYOCK End of days 312 MARGE PIERCY About the Editors and Contributors 315 Index 321 ...