The Good Death

by Marilyn Webb

The Good Death is the first full-scale and most evenhanded examination of one of the most complex issues facing Americans today. Compellingly and compassionately written, it is based on more than six years of firsthand research and reporting by a leading investigative journalist. It brings fully to life the medical, legal, and ethical controversies that surround end-of-life care, showing exactly how they affect individuals and families. It also explores the psychological and spiritual realities that are at the heart of our longing for "death with dignity.". Marilyn Webb combines a journalist's objectivity with a passionate advocacy for people in pain. Building her account around intimate portraits of the dying themselves, she also introduces us to leading doctors, hospice workers and medical ethicists, legal experts and pain specialists, advocates of assisted suicide - and their determined opponents. She explains why some deaths become shockingly difficult - including the refusal of ma