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Final Acts
Death, Dying, and the Choices We Make
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Edited by:
Nan Bauer-Maglin
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With contributions by:
June Bingham
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2010
About this book
Today most people die gradually, from incremental illnesses, rather than from the heart attacks or fast-moving diseases that killed earlier generations. Given this new reality, the essays in Final Acts explore how we can make informed and caring end-of-life choices for ourselves and for those we loveùand what can happen without such planning.
Contributors include patients, caretakers, physicians, journalists, lawyers, social workers, educators, hospital administrators, academics, psychologists, and a poet, and among them are ethicists, religious believers, and nonbelievers. Some write moving, personal accounts of "good" or 'bad" deaths; others examine the ethical, social, and political implications of slow dying. Essays consider death from natural causes, suicide, and aid-in-dying (assisted suicide).
Writing in a style free of technical jargon, the contributors discuss documents that should be prepared (health proxy, do-not-resuscitate order, living will, power of attorney); decision-making (over medical interventions, life support, hospice and palliative care, aid-in-dying, treatment location, speaking for those who can no longer express their will); and the roles played by religion, custom, family, friends, caretakers, money, the medical establishment, and the government.
For those who yearn for some measure of control over death, the essayists in Final Acts, from very different backgrounds and with different personal and professional experiences around death and dying, offer insight and hope.
Author / Editor information
Nan Bauer-Maglin was formerly a professor of English, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, and academic director of the CUNY Baccalaureate Program. She is the coeditor of "Bad Girls/Good Girls": Women, Sex, and Power in the Nineties (with Donna Perry), Women Confronting Retirement: A Nontraditional Guide, and Cut Loose: (Mostly) Older Women on the End of Their (Mostly) Long-Term Relationships (Rutgers University Press).
Donna Perry, a professor of English, teaches literature, writing, and women's studies courses at William Paterson University. She is the editor of Backtalk: Women Writers Speak Out and coeditor (with Nan Bauer-Maglin) of "Bad Girls/Good Girls": Women, Sex, and Power in the Nineties (Rutgers University Press).
Donna Perry, a professor of English, teaches literature, writing, and women's studies courses at William Paterson University. She is the editor of Backtalk: Women Writers Speak Out and coeditor (with Nan Bauer-Maglin) of "Bad Girls/Good Girls": Women, Sex, and Power in the Nineties (Rutgers University Press).
Reviews
"If there's one profound lesson to be learned from Final Acts, it is that most of us are woefully uninformed and unprepared to make wise end-of-life choices. A good place to begin is by reading this book."
— Eleanor Foa Dienstag, Transition Network Newsletter"The essays in Final Acts offer all manner of paths, exploring a new relationship with death. Wise and gentle guides, Bauer-Maglin and Perry reveal meaning and purpose in the journey."
— Barbara Coombs Lee, President, Compassion & Choices"An insightful, complex, and pragmatic 'how-to' guide for dying in the Western world. Final Acts a is strong, well-composed, and balanced tool kit to help us all not only change our system to better maintain the integrity of the dying, but to enter into the end of life with confidence and control."
— Global Action on Aging"Final Acts provides the reader with persuasive and enlightening views on the controversial complex issues that are illustrated in the personal stories. It is a collection of moving stories and compelling essays."
— The GerontologistTopics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
v -
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Preface
vii -
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Introduction
1 - Part One. Personal Stories
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Notes on My Dying
19 -
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Live Longer or Live Better?
29 -
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“Life which is ours to know just once”
33 -
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Caregiving Beulah: A Relentless Challenge
55 -
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E-mails to Family and Friends: Claude and Maxilla—Declining Gently
67 -
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Whose Death Is It, Anyway?
91 -
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The Family Tree
111 -
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Elegy for an Optimist
123 -
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Buddhist Reflections on Life and Death: A Personal Memoir
126 -
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Death as My Colleague
139 - Part Two. Perspectives
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The Transformation of Death in America
163 -
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Unintended Consequences: Hospice, Hospitals, and the Not-So-Good Death
183 -
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The Hospital Ethics Committee: Solving Medical Dilemmas
204 -
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Ethical Principles for End-of-Life Decision Making
220 -
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Life or Death: Who Gets to Choose?
238 -
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Empowering Patients at the End of Life: Law, Advocacy, Policy
252 -
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Dying Down Under: From Law Reform to the Peaceful Pill
268 -
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Ageism and Late-Life Choices
288 -
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Physician-Assisted Suicide: Why Both Sides Are Wrong
301 -
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End of days
312 -
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About the Editors and Contributors
315 -
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Index
321
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
November 18, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9780813549088
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780813549088
Keywords for this book
end-of-life choices; Final Acts; gradual death; incremental illnesses; heart attacks; fast-moving diseases; informed choices; caring choices; planning; contributors; patients; caretakers; physicians; journalists; lawyers; social workers; educators; hospital administrators; academics; psychologists; poet; ethicists; religious believers; nonbelievers; personal accounts; ethical implications; social implications; political implications; slow dying; natural causes; suicide; aid-in-dying; assisted suicide; health proxy; do-not-resuscitate order; living will; power of attorney; decision-making; medical interventions; life support; hospice; palliative care; treatment location; religion; custom; family; friends; money; medical establishment; government; control over death; insight; hope.
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
