In The Case against Assisted Suicide: For the Right to End-of-Life Care, Dr. Kathleen Foley and Dr. Herbert Hendin uncover why pleas for patient autonomy and compassion, often used in favor of legalizing euthanasia, do not advance or protect the rights of terminally ill patients. Incisive essays by authorities in the fields of medicine, law, and bioethics draw on studies done in the Netherlands, Oregon, and Australia by the editors and contributors that show the dangers that legalization of assisted suicide would pose to the most vulnerable patients. Thoughtful and persuasive, this book urges the medical profession to improve palliative care and develop a more humane response to the complex issues facing those who are terminally ill.

Kathleen Foley, M.D., is professor of neurology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and director of the Project on Death in America of the Open Society Institute and Soros Foundation.Herbert Hendin, M.D., is professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at New York Medical College and medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.