Guest Editorial – The Stories We Live By
Written by Dr Ron Hamel, Senior Director, Ethics, of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, this piece reminds us that the decisions we make express the moral character of the individuals and organizations making the decisions. Dr Hamel notes that organizations typically don’t attend to this dynamic. Our beliefs, values, attitudes, intentions, motives and patterns of acting are embedded within the stories we live by.
Does Dying with Dignity Always Mean Actively Ending Life?
In this article, Professor Margaret O’Connor and Dr Susan Lee, lecturers in Palliative Care and Nursing respectively, highlight the vulnerability of people facing the end of life. Drawing on research and drawing on their own rich experience of working with the needs of the dying in Australia, they argue that “being in control of one’s death does not necessarily guarantee the preservation of dignity, and conversely not being in control of when one is to die, does not mean a person will die without dignity.”
Conversations with Sister Paula Brettkelly – A Story about Dying
Based on a series of interviews between Dr Michael McCabe and Sister Paula Brettkelly, this dialogue candidly and movingly reveals the hopes, fears, struggles, courage and faith of Sister Paula as she deals with her terminal illness.
Giving and Receiving: An Alternative Framework for Discerning the Good Revisiting the Question of Physician-Assisted Suicide
In the final article for this issue, John Kleinsman offers an alternative approach to analysing the euthanasia debate; an approach that opens up a richer and more robust discussion of the issue than other ethical approaches that focus primarily on questions related to autonomy and the right to choose.
