The International Society for Science and Religion has selected Matters of Life and Death as an element of the ISSR Library. The mission of the ISSR Library is "to provide a comprehensive resource for scholars, students, and interested lay readers in the area of science and the human spirit."The incredible medical breakthroughs of today, like genetic engineering, in-vitro fertilizations, and cloning have transformed long-held beliefs on the nature of both life and death, raising difficult moral and religious questions. In Matters of Life and Death Elliot Dorff thoroughly addresses this unavoidable confluence of medical technology and Jewish law and ethics. Elliot N. Dorff, Rabbi (Jewish Theological Seminary), PhD (Columbia University), is rector and Sol and Anne Dorff Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in Los Angeles. Among the twelve books he has written are four award-winning books on Jewish ethics and law published by The Jewish Publication Society: Matters of Life and Death (1998) on Jewish medical ethics; To Do the Right and the Good (2002) on Jewish social ethics; Love Your Neighbor and Yourself on Jewish personal ethics; and For the Love of God and People: A Philosophy of Jewish Law (2007). He has also edited 10 books, including Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality (Oxford, 1995) and Contemporary Jewish Theology (Oxford, 1999), co-edited by Louis Newman, who also co-edited with Dorff the first three volumes of the Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices series. Since 1984, Rabbi Dorff has served on the Rabbinical Assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, and has served as its Chair since 2007. He has also served on several federal advisory commissions dealing with the ethics of health care, sexual responsibility, and research on human subjects. He is a member of the State of California's Ethics Committee on embryonic stem cell research. He is married to Marlynn, and they have four children and seven grandchildren.

This book analyzes the major issues of research ethics through a careful review of the treatment in official policies on research ethics developed throughout the world (especially North America, Western Europe, and the Pacific Rim). Among the issues covered are animal research, research on human subjects, epidemiological research, genetic research, reproductive research, research on vulnerable subjects, clinical trials, drug approval and the research process, and research on women and minorities. Brody also evaluates the content and the methods of developing these policies in light of his philosophical position of pluralistic casuistry. This is the only book that analyzes all the major issues in research ethics. It is the only book which deals with these issues from an international perspective rather than just a US perspective. Major official policies from important research-intensive countries are reprinted in the appendix (close to 200 plates of otherwise difficult material).

12 essays describe the anger and frustration patients and families often feel towards the health care system.

Introduction -- Bioethics as politics -- Bioethics progressing / Sam Berger and Jonathan D. Moreno -- Can there be a progressive bioethics? / Richard Lempert -- Bioethics as progressive -- Politics, progressivism, and bioethics / R. Alta Charo -- Bioethics : the new conservative crusade / Kathryn Hinsch -- Justice that you must pursue : a progressive American bioethics / Laurie Zoloth -- The sociology of political bioethics -- Professionalism and politics : biomedicalization and the rise of bioethics / Paul Root Wolpe -- The tension between progressive bioethics and religion / John H. Evans -- Can national bioethics commissions be progressive? should they? / Eric M. Meslin -- Conflicting views of biotechnology -- Technoprogressive biopolitics and human enhancement / James J. Hughes -- Biopolitics, mythic science, and progressive values / Marcy Darnovsky -- Progress beyond politics? -- Can bioethics transcend ideology? (and should it?) / Arthur L. Caplan -- A Catholic progressive on care and conscience / Michael Rugnetta -- Reforming health care : ends and means / Daniel Callahan -- Finding common ground in bioethics? / William F. May -- Afterword

THE AMBASSADOR takes place in Europe a hundred years from now. It is a time when the European Union is the supreme leader of the free world, the main challenger to China, with the USA trailing behind. Scientific advance has brought the ability to beat disease and ageing - not by medicine alone but more fundamentally, by gene therapy. In THE AMBASSADOR, Bill Strether is sent by the American President to the UK to represent his country which, captured by fundamentalists, has banned the medical advances taken for granted in his new home. Although he harbours doubts about its ethics, he finds the official genetic programme breathtaking and impossible to condemn. THE AMBASSADOR is an extraordinarily persuasive account of how the world could be. The results could be chilling, even terrifying. Scientific discovery is both Pandora's box and Ali Baba's cave. When faced with the astonishing array of choices offered to us by the new genetic knowledge, how do we choose?

1. GENERAL The term "diagnostics" refers to the general theory of diagnosis, not to the study of specific diagnoses but to their general framework. It borrows from different sciences and from different philosophies. Traditionally, the general framework of diagnostics was not distinguished from the framework of medicine. It was not taught in special courses in any systematic way; it was not accorded special attention: students absorbed it intuitively. There is almost no comprehensive study of diagnostics. The instruction in diagnosis provided in medical schools is exclusively specific. Clinical instruction includes (in addition to vital background information, such as anatomy and physiology) specific instruction in nosology, the theory and classification of diseases, and this includes information on diagnoses and prognoses of diverse diseases. What is the cause of the neglect of diagnostics, and of its integrated teaching? The main cause may be the prevalence of the view of diagnostics as part-and parcel of nosology. In this book nosology is taken as a given, autonomous field of study, which invites almost no comments; we shall freely borrow from it a few important general theses and a few examples. We attempt to integrate here three studies: ll of the way nosology is used in the diagnostic process; of the diagnostic process as a branch of applied ethics; ~ of the diagnostic process as a branch of social science and social technology.

"When it comes to morality as it is practiced in medicine, Brody makes clear that the ethical issues are never as simple as black and white - that there are myriad factors and fine nuances that can and should challenge decision making as it is commonly practiced in difficult medical cases. In this collection, delving thoughtfully and systematically into methodology, research ethics, clinical ethics, and Jewish medical ethics, he tackles thorny life-and-death questions head-on and fearlessly. He casts a light into all the corners of end-of-life decisions - a field in which he has exemplary credentials - while illuminating a new understanding of morality and ethics." "The introduction outlines much of Brody's approach, defines the terminology used, and contrasts his ethical positions with much of the competing literature, Taking Issue will be invaluable to students and scholars in medical ethics, bioethics, and the philosophy of medicine." "Baruch A. Brody is the Leon Jaworski Professor Biomedical Ethics and director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. He is also a professor of philosophy at Rice University and director of the Ethics program at the Methodist Hospital."--BOOK JACKET

Leavened with compassion, common sense, and a readable style, this introduction to complicated bioethical issues from both Jewish and Catholic perspectives is as informative as it is undaunting. Aaron Mackler takes the reader through methodology in Roman Catholic moral theology and compares and contrasts it with methodology as it is practiced in Jewish ethics. He then skillfully wends his way through many topics foremost on the contemporary ethical agenda for both Jewish and Catholic ethicists: euthanasia and assisted suicide, end-of-life decisions, abortion, in vitro fertilization, and the ever-growing problem of justice regarding access to health care and medical resources. A concluding chapter summarizes general tendencies in the comparison of the two traditions, and addresses the significance of convergence and divergence between these traditions for moral thinkers within each faith community, and generally in western democracies such as the United States. As Mackler overviews these issues, he points out the divergences and the commonalities between the two traditions -- clarifying each position and outlining the structure of thinking that supports them. At the heart of both Catholic and Jewish perspectives on bioethics is a life-affirming core, and while there may be differences in the "why" of those ethical divergences, and in the "how" each arrived at varying -- or the same -- conclusions, both traditions, in the words of James McCartney as quoted in the introduction, "are guided by the principle that life is precious; that we are bidden to preserve and guard our health; that we are bidden to intervene in nature to raise the human estate; and that our lives are not our own, but are part of the legacy bequeathed to us by the Creator." This book has been carefully crafted in that spirit.

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