Personal rights, such as the right to procreate - or not - and the right to die generate endless debate. This text maps out the legal, political and ethical issues swirling around personal rights in the US. Ball shows how the Supreme Court has grappled with the right to reproduce and to abort, and takes on the issue of auto-euthanasia and assisted suicide, from Karen Ann Quinlan and Jack Kevorkian to the Florida case of the woman who was paralyzed by a gunshot from her mother and pulled the plug on herself. For the last half of the 20th century, the justices of the Supreme Court have had to wrestle with new and difficult life and death questions for them as well as for doctors and their patients, medical ethicists, sociologists, medical practitioners, clergy, philosophers, law makers and judges. This book offers a look at these issues as they emerged and examines the manner in which the men and women of the US Supreme Court addressed them.
