Complex Issues. Thoughtful Answers. When is it right to remove a feeding tube from a patient? Are health care workers entitled to conscience protections? Should contraceptives be used for medical purposes? Is medical marijuana ever OK? Medical and technological advances have left millions of Catholics grappling with tough issues—dilemmas that will only multiply as technology and medicine continue to develop at an ever-faster pace. In this updated and expanded edition of Life Issues, Medical Choices, two noted bioethicists explore fundamental principles of Catholic thought—in accessible, easy-to-understand language—to help you make decisions about complex medical and life issues.
Janet E. Smith is the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. She wrote Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader. She speaks nationally and internationally on the church’s teaching on sexuality and on bioethics. Over one million copies of her talk “Contraception: Why Not” have been distributed. Dr. Christopher Kaczor holds a PH.D. from the University of Notre Dame, studied as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Cologne in Germany, and is the Robert H. Taylor Chair in Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He wrote Proportionalism and the Natural Law Tradition, The Edge of Life: Human Dignity and Contemporary Bioethics and How to Stay Catholic in College.