University of Notre Dame Press
Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience
Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience
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Questions about the dignity of the human person give rise to many of the most central and hotly disputed topics in bioethics. In A Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience, Christopher Kaczor investigates whether each human being has intrinsic dignity and whether the very concept of dignity has a useful place in contemporary ethical debates. Kaczor explores a broad range of issues addressed in contemporary bioethics, including whether there is a duty of procreative beneficence, the ethics of ectopic pregnancy, and the possibility of rescuing human embryos with human wombs or artificial wombs. A Defense of Dignity also treats issues relevant to the end of life, including physician-assisted suicide, provision of food and water to patients in a persistent vegetative state, and how to proceed with organ donation following death. Finally, what are the duties and prerogatives of health care professionals who refuse in conscience to take part in activities that they regard as degrading to human dignity? Should they be forced to do what they consider to be violations of the patient's well being, or does patient autonomy always trump the conscience of a health care professional? Grounded in the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition, A Defense of Dignity argues that all human beings from the beginning to the end of their lives should be treated with respect and considers how this belief should be applied in controversial cases.
Author: Christopher Kaczor
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: 05/31/2013
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.82lbs
Size: 9.06h x 6.01w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9780268033262
Review Citation(s):
Choice 12/01/2013
About the Author
Christopher Kaczor is professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He is author and editor of a number of books, including The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice.
