Volume 9, Number 1, November 1997
Abstracts
Issues in Law & Medicine 12:02 (Fall 1996) l33-65
"A Critique of Family Members as Proxy Decision-makers Without Legal Limits";
Bopp, James.
This long, detailed and widely researched article analyzes the rights
of legally incompetent patients with severe disabilities in relation
to medical treatment. It is written from the perspective of a person
with a disability. It deals only with the legal position in the USA.
The author's particular concern is the assumption that family members
are automatically the most appropriate people to make decisions of
medical treatment on behalf of their incompetent (whether children
or adult) family members.
There is a lengthy analysis of the many areas of potential conflict
of interest and other difficulties facing family members in making
these decisions.
The authors are critical of those US state courts which have failed
to exercise their parens patriae power. They strongly advocate and
propose guidelines be provided which properly protect the basic fundamental
human rights of persons with severe disabilities.
Journal of Clinical Ethics 07:02 (Summer 1996) 160-76
"Philosophy, Gender Politics, and In Vitro Fertilization: A Feminist Ethics
of Reproductive Healthcare"; LeMoncheck, Linda.
Although feminists have argued that male domination of reproductive
health is co-extensive with the oppression of women generally, they
are profoundly divided in their final judgements about the new reproductive
technologies. The so-called "liberal" feminists argue that
IVF and other technologies can be refashioned into "women-centred" and
socially responsible services which expand women's choices and free
individuals from strictly traditional family structures. Other feminists
refute these claims by highlighting the dangers for women's physical
and emotion health inherent in what is in every sense "dehumanising" technology.
The author reviews the process of IVF and finds that the traditional
ethical theories, "Kantian duty-based ethics, utilitarian moral
theory, and the ethics of virtue" do not adequately address the
critical personal and political issues at stake. She suggests that
a feminist ethical approach can address these issues in a dialectic
fashion, acknowledging and counteracting the pressures of making reproductive
choices within a "gender social framework" and at the same
time working positively and co-operatively with the concrete desires
of individual women to access the new reproductive technologies.
Geriatrics 51:06 (June 1996) 32-42
"A Peaceful Death: How to Manage Pain and Provide Quality Care"; Butler,
Robert N.
The summary of this panel discussion from the USA notes that "One
of the most important components of a peaceful death is adequate control
of pain and other distressing symptoms, such as shortness of breath,
agitation, and restlessness." Requests for physician-assisted
suicide are a cry for help and respond to good palliative care. The
most useful function of advance directives is that they open an avenue
for discussion between patient and doctor as to what the patient perceives
as an acceptable death.
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