Life's Living toward Dying: A Theological and Medical-Ethical Study - Paperback

by Vigen Guroian (Author)

In the past several years our culture's long-standing prohibitions against suicide and euthanasia have been seriously challenged. A great tidal change in morality and law may be occurring as the courts seem to be creating a new right -- the individual's right to die. Life's Living toward Dying responds to this challenge. Vigen Guroian discusses society's moral confusion over the meaning of death and gives a Christian alternative for care of the dying that is consistent with the strong value that the Christian church has ascribed to human life.

Back Jacket

In the past several years our culture's long-standing prohibitions against suicide and euthanasia have been seriously challenged. A great tidal change in morality and law may be occurring as the courts seem to be creating a new right - the individual's right to die. In the fall of 1994 the people of Oregon voted to legalize physician-assisted suicide; Michigan's courts continue to acquit Dr. Jack Kevorkian for his involvement in the deaths of more than two dozen patients; and in several states federal appeals courts have struck down statutes that prohibited physician-assisted suicide. In Life's Living toward Dying Vigen Guroian responds to this challenge. He discusses society's moral confusion over the meaning of death and gives a Christian alternative for care of the dying that is consistent with the strong value that the Christian church has ascribed to human life.

Author Biography

Vigen Guroian is Professor of Religious Studies in Orthodox Christianity at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He tends a large perennial and vegetable garden with his wife, June, in Culpeper, Virginia. His books include Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening, Life's Living toward Dying (both Eerdmans), and Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination (Oxford).