Author Description

Why, despite so many reform efforts, has death remained acutely troubling in our common life? Why has modern medicine remained so ambivalent, so torn, in its stance toward death? And most important, why has it become so hard for most of us to understand the place of death in our own lives and self-conception, and to know how to pursue a peaceful death? By exploring his own life and the lives and deaths of loved ones, by sharing his own emotions and the experiences of others, Daniel Callahan sets the framework for a more complete interpretation and understanding of mortality. He argues that by turning medical decisions into one more civil liberties issue - "my right to choose my own ending" - we have unwittingly distanced ourselves from a far more basic question: What should be the meaning of death in our lives? We cannot constructively talk about "a death with dignity" without thinking about death itself - and that is just what we have become reluctant to do. Modern medicine has discovered a vast array of new and often radical cures for saving and lengthening lives, wagering that death can be forestalled and, one by one, its causes eliminated. As a result, medicine has come to treat death as an avoidable accident. With challenging ideas and great sensitivity, Callahan contends that modern medicine must redefine its understanding of the relationship between life and death. The needed shift in the medical perspective must be matched by a change in the way we think about death in our own lives. By emphasizing the importance of self-knowledge and a better understanding of the place of death in nature, Callahan proposes fresh and insightful ways of living with mortality. Weaving together his personal insights and stories with the great debates now taking place about euthanasia, assisted suicide, and our choices about dying. Daniel Callahan moves the controversies about death and dying to a deeper, richer level.