CONTENTS:
1. Birth After Death (An American story; A German story; Our choice)
2. How Death was Redefined (Pink, supple...and dead; The Harvard committee on the determination of death; Brain death; An unstable compromise)
3. Dr Shann's Dilemma (Two babies; Breathing but dead?; The case for a higher brain definition of death; Against brain death; A way forward?)
4. Tony Bland and the Sanctity of Human Life (Tony Bland's tragedy; Deciding on the basis of quality of life; Lawfully intending to end innocent human life; Discarding a fig leaf; Beyond the sanctity of human life; Acts and omissions)
5. Uncertain Beginnings (Peggy Stinson's puzzle; The unavoidable issue; The era of legal abortion; New reproductive technology and the abortion debate; Unlocking the abortion deadlock)
6. Making Quality of Life Judgments (How the Reagan administration chose a quality of life ethic; Treating to die; Selective non-treatment and infanticide)
7. Asking for Death (The problem; The solution?; How voluntary euthanasia became possible in the Netherlands; The coming struggle for the right to die; Breaking the commandments)
8. Beyond the Discontinuous Mind (Whose organs may we take? ; In God's image and at the centre of the universe; The western tradition under attack; Who is Homo? ; Who is a person?)
9. In Place of the Old Ethic (The structure of ethical revolutions; Rewriting the commandments; Some answers; The basis of the new approach to life and death)