Just as war has been declared against the unborn, so too there is an active campaign to bump off the elderly, the infirm, and many who simply are tired of living. Thus people are at risk at all ages of life from those who would legalise euthanasia.
The following books make the case for life, and show the shortcomings of allowing euthanasia to be legalised. Perhaps most are written by those in the Judeo-Christian camp, but some secular titles appear as well. In the first section books critical of the pro-death stance are featured, while in the second section, a number of books arguing the yes and no cases are mentioned.
The third section looks at an important related issue: the euthanasia program in Nazi Germany and lessons to be learned from it. Books as well as significant journal articles are included here. All these works are well worth getting hold of.
If I have to single out just a few volumes, perhaps I can mention those by Joni Eareckson Tada, Brian Pollard, Wesley Smith, and Margaret Somerville. But most of these titles can be usefully read, although the Wennberg volume is not ideal in all cases.
We need to be up on the arguments and counter-arguments, and these volumes will help you as you make the case for life and resist the culture of death.
Works Critical of Legalised Euthanasia
Blocher, Mark, The Right to Die? Caring Alternatives to Euthanasia. Moody, 1999.
Chamberlain, Paul, Final Wishes. IVP, 2000.
Demy, Timothy and Gary Stewart, eds., Suicide: A Christian Response. Kregal, 1998.
Dyck, Arthur, Life’s Worth: The Case Against Assisted Suicide. Eerdmans, 2002.
Dyck, Arthur, When Killing is Wrong: Physician- Assisted Suicide and the Courts. Pilgrim Press, 2001.
Eareckson Tada, Joni, When is it Right to Die?: Suicide, Euthanasia, Suffering, Mercy. Zondervan, 1992.
Foley, Kathleen and Herbert Hendin, eds., The Case Against Assisted Suicide: For the Right to End-Of-Life Care. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
Gomez, Carlos, Regulating Death: Euthanasia and the Case of the Netherlands. Free Press, 1991.
Hendin, Herbert, Seduced by Death, 2nd edition. Norton, 1998.
Johnston, Brian, Death as a Salesman: What’s Wrong with Assisted Suicide? New Regency Publishing, 1997.
Keown, John, Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Kilner, John, et.al., eds., Dignity and Dying: A Christian Appraisal. Eerdmans, 1996.
Koop, C. Everett, The Right To Live, the Right To Die. Tyndale House, 1976.
Larson, Edward and Darrel Amundsen, A Different Death. IVP, 1998.
Ling, John, The Edge of Life: Dying, Death and Euthanasia. Day One Publications, 2002.
Marker, Rita, Deadly Compassion. William Morrow, 1993.
May, William, Testing the Medical Covenant: Active Euthanasia and Health Care Reform. Eerdmans, 1996.
Pitcher, George, A Time to Live. Monarch Books, 2010.
Pollard, Brian, The Challenge of Euthanasia. Little Hills Press, 1994.
Smith, Anthony, Euthanasia: A Licence to Kill? Kingsway, 2006. Smith, Wesley, Forced Exit. Times Books, 1997.
Somerville, Margaret, Death Talk: The Case Against Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001.
Spring, Beth and Ed Larson, Euthanasia: Spiritual, Medical and Legal Issues in Terminal Health Care. Multnomah Press, 1988.
Stewart, Gary, et. al., Basic Questions on Suicide and Euthanasia. Kregel, 1998.
Wennberg, Robert, Terminal Choices: Euthanasia, Suicide and the Right to Die. Eerdmans, 1989.
Pro and Con
Gerald Dworkin, R.G. Frey, and Sissela Bok, Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide: For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Haley, James, ed., Death and Dying: Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press, 2003.
Snyder, Carrie, ed., Euthanasia: Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press, 2006.
Uhlmann, Michael, ed., Last Rights?: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Debated. Eerdmans, 1998.
Euthanasia, Eugenics, the Medical Profession, and Nazi Germany – Books
Annas, George and Michael Grodin, eds., The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation. Oxford University Press, 1992.
Baumslag, Naomi, Murderous Medicine: Nazi Doctors, Human Experimentation, and Typhus. Praeger Publishers, 2005.
Brennan, William, Medical Holocaust I: Exterminative Medicine in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America. Nordland, 1980.
Burleigh, Michael, Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany 1900-1945. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Friedlander, Henry, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. The University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Gallagher, Hugh Gregory, By Trust Betrayed: Patients, Physicians and the License to Kill in the Third Reich. Henry Holt, 1990.
Hoedeman, Paul, Hitler or Hippocrates: Medical Experiments and Euthanasia in the Third Reich. Book Guild, 1991.
Kater, Michael, Doctors under Hitler. The University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Lifton, Robert Jay, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. Basic Books, 1986.
Michalczyk, John, ed., Medicine, Ethics, and the Third Reich. Sheen & Ward, 1994.
Muller-Hill, Benno, Murderous Science. Oxford University Press, 1988.
Pichot, Andre, Pure Society: From Darwin to Hitler. Verso, 2009.
Proctor, Robert, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis. Harvard University Press, 1988.
Sereny, Gitta, Into Darkness: From Mercy Killing to Mass Murder. McGraw-Hill, 1974.
Spitz, Vivien, Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans. Sentient Publications, 2005.
Weikart, Richard, From Darwin to Hitler. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Weikart, Richard, Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Euthanasia, Eugenics, the Medical Profession, and Nazi Germany – Articles
Alexander, Leo, “Medical Science Under Dictatorship,” New England Journal of Medicine, 14 July 1949, pp. 39-47.
Brown, Harold O.J., “Euthanasia: Lessons from Nazism,” Human Life Review, 13, March 1987, pp. 88-99.
Burleigh, Michael, “Euthanasia and the Third Reich,” History Today, February 1990, pp. 11-16.
Neuhaus, Richard John, “The Way They Were, the Way We Are: Bioethics and the Holocaust,” First Things, March 1990, pp. 31-37.
Pellegrino, Edmund, “The Nazi Doctors and Nuremberg: Some Moral Lessons Revisited,” Annals of Internal Medicine, 15 August 1997, Vol. 127 Is. 4, pp. 307-308.
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