Spiritual And Medical Perspectives On Euthanasia And Mortality.
In 'Denial Of The Soul', Dr Peck helps us face the reality of doing the work of the dying and coming to terms with our own and our loved ones' mortality. Through a profound exploration of one of the most explosive issues of our age - euthanasia and the right to die - Dr Peck poses the questions we should all ask ourselves and helps us determine the spiritual lessons that dying is meant to teach us.
The Hippocratic Oath, the central source of medical ethics for more than two thousand years, dictates two primary duties to physicians: to prolong life and to relieve suffering. In recent years, however, the advancements in life-prolonging technology have blurred the lines between what constitutes good medicine and the deeper ethical and spiritual issues involved in keeping a patient alive at all costs. As a physician, psychiatrist, and theologian, M Scott Peck is uniquely suited to address the complex issues and paradoxes that have resulted from medicine's technical ability to perpetuate the mechanisms of life - often without preserving life's essence. In 'Denial Of The Soul', Dr Peck differentiates the many situations that euthanasia is currently and commonly used to describe and offers new definitions that clarify its meaning. He rails against the inadequate treatment of physical pain and gives sensible medical and spiritual perspectives on chronic and terminal emotional and physical pain and illness.
'Denial Of The Soul' grapples with the deeper meanings of life, death, suicide, and euthanasia and asks whether we have the ethical right to kill ourselves even though we have the power. Through compelling stories from Dr Peck's own experiences as a physician as well as from other medical cases in which some form of euthanasia was either practiced or considered, he explores the core issues that should arise when people face the question of euthanasia for themselves, their loved ones, or society: How does taking a life differ from allowing death? Whose consent does euthanasia require: the patient's, the family's, or the government's? When does physical or emotional pain become grounds for euthanasia? What can we learn from the process of dying a natural death?
A deeply moving meditation on what euthanasia reveals about the status of the soul in our age, "Denial Of The Soul' is a masterwork of grace and scholarship, of meaning and medicine, and of compassion and honesty. Through his discussion of our society's "denial" of the soul - our reluctance to coexist with the mysteries of living, our inclination to circumvent the natural processes of dying through medical means, our avoidance of the lessons that dying has to teach us - Dr Peck guides readers through a disturbing emotional and philosophical terrain toward greater spiritual understanding. His trenchant and sensitive treatment of euthanasia will define our humanity for generations to come.
