Books in the Catholic Studies in Bioethics series

This volume comprises various viewpoints representing a Catholic perspective on contemporary practices in medicine and biomedical research. The Roman Catholic Church has had a significant impact upon the formulation and application of moral values and principles to a wide range of controversial issues in bioethics.

"Bioethicists have achieved consensus on two ideas pertaining to beginning of life issues: (1) persons are those beings capable of higher-order cognition, or self-consciousness, and (2) it is impermissible to kill only persons.

Critical Choices and Critical Care brings together the traditional reflections on ordinary and extraordinary means with Catholic social thought. It examines the difficult questions on the allocation of high technology resources used in intensive care medicine.

"Bioethicists have achieved consensus on two ideas pertaining to beginning of life issues: (1) persons are those beings capable of higher-order cognition, or self-consciousness, and (2) it is impermissible to kill only persons.

Because it occurs at the end of life, palliative sedation raises a number of important ethical and legal questions, including whether it is a covert form of euthanasia and for what purposes it may legally be used.