Seduced by Death: Doctors, Patients, and Assisted Suicide

by Herbert Hendin

Book Overview

Few issues set off such impassioned debate as euthanasia and assisted suicide, but until now, no one has shown what their practice means in the actual experience of patients, doctors, and families.

Herbert Hendin has studied such experience in the United States and also in the Netherlands, where assisted suicide and euthanasia are accepted. Using interviews with leading medical and legal architects of Dutch practices, and evaluating actual...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393317919
• ISBN13: 9780393317916
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Case study of euthanasia in the Netherlands

A must read for anyone interseted in the euthanasia bebate. Hendin went to the Netherlands and interviewed a number of key figures. He exposes the major problems the Dutch are having in regulating euthanasia. The paragraph below is an excellent summary of his findings: "The Netherlands has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, from euthanasia for people who are terminally ill to euthanasia for those who are chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress, from voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia The Dutch government?s own commissioned research has documented that in more than one thousand cases a year, doctors actively cause or hasten death without the patient?s request." Hendin looks at the issue from ethical, political, and practical viewpoints. He also looks at the why the U.S. could possible be the next country to legalize euthanasia.