Includes bibliographical references and index.

Hospice care benefits the terminally ill / Marilyn Webb -- Hospice care may not benefit the terminally ill / Felicia Ackerman -- Dying at home benefits the terminally ill / Bill Berlow -- Home caregivers' needs should be respected / Danna Syltebo -- Patients should be given better treatments for pain / Part I: Ellen Goodman; Part II: Warren E. Leary -- Patients should be given more control over their deaths / Faye Girsh -- The medical community should emphasize pain treatment over euthanasia / American Pain Society -- Effective pain treatment should ot rule out euthanasia / Bobbie Farsides -- Suffering should not be evaded / Kirsten Backstrom -- Marijuana should be legalized for seriously ill and terminally ill patients / Jerome P. Kassirer -- Marijuana should not be legalized for seriously ill and terminally ill patients / Robert L. Maginnis -- Terminally ill people should plan for the end of life / Roger C. Bone -- Dying should be seen as a time of growth / Pythia Peay -- Withdrawing life support is acceptable / Choice in Dying -- Acceptance of the withdrawal of life support could lead to the acceptance of euthanasia / Charles E. Rice.

Physicians should not be allowed to prescribe lethal doses to terminally ill patients / Tom A. Coburn -- Potentially lethal drugs are necessary to control the pain associated with terminal illness / John A. Kitzhaber -- Euthanasia is morally permissible / Fracnes M. Kamm -- Physicians should not be allowed to participate in euthanasia / Alan B. Astrow -- The terminally ill should have access to assisted suicide / Wesley J. Smith -- Advance directives protect the right to die / don Udall -- Living wills do not protect the right to live / Murray N. Rothbard -- The terminally ill may have a duty to die / John Hardwig -- the terminally ill should not be pressured to die / Part I: Nat Hentoff; Part II: Miguel A. Faria Jr. -- How can care of the terminally ill be improved? -- How should the physical and emotional pain of terminal illness be addressed? -- Should physicians be permitted to hasten the deaths of terminally ill patients? -- Do the terminally ill have the right to die?