Culture of Death

Culture of Death
Christian Books | Search Books & Music:

Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America

Information on Culture of Death from the publisher:

When his teenaged son Christopher, brain-damaged in an auto accident, developed a 106-degree fever following weeks of unconsciousness, John Campbell asked the attending physician for help. The doctor refused. Why bother? The boy's life was effectively over. Campbell refused to accept this verdict. He demanded treatment and threatened legal action. The doctor finally relented. With treatment, Christopher'stemperature subsided almost immediately. Soon afterwards he regained consciousness and today he is learning to walk again.This story is one of many Wesley J. Smith recounts in his groundbreaking new book, Culture of Death. Smith believes that American medicine "is changing from a system based on the sanctity of human life into a starklyutilitarian model in which the medically defenseless are seen as having not just a 'right' but a 'duty' to die." Going behind the current scenes of our health care system, he shows how doctors withdraw desired care based on Futile Care Theory rather than providing it as required by theHippocratic Oath. And how "bioethicists" influence policy by consideringquestions such as whether organs may be harvested from the terminally ill and disabled. This is a passionate, yet coolly reasoned book about the current crisis in medical ethics by an author who has made "the new thanatology" his consuming interest.

Description of Wesley J. Smith, author of Culture of Death:

When his teenage son Christopher, brain-damaged in an auto accident, developed a 106-degree fever after weeks of unconsciousness, John Campbell asked the attending physician for help. The doctor's response: Why bother? The boy's life was effectively over. Campbell refused to accept this death sentence. He threatened legal action and the doctor finally relented. With treatment, Christopher's temperature subsided almost immediately. Soon he regained consciousness and today he is learning to walk again. This story is one of many Wesley J. Smith recounts in this deeply felt but coolly argued book. Smith goes behind the scenes of our health care system to show how a new, self-proclaimed elite of "bioethicists" threatens patient welfare by undermining the Hippocratic Oath. In the new worldview of bioethics, "death" is being redefined to include "irreversible" coma. The case is being made for organ harvesting from the terminally ill and disabled. Cognitively disabled patients are dehydrated to death by having their tube-supplied food and water withheld. Animals receive greater protection in medical experiments than people. After reading this book, it will be hard to disagree with Wesley Smith's contention that we stand at a medical and cultural crossroads and that we must embrace a new bioethics of human rights if we are to reassert the sanctity of life.