Property left in a living trust bypasses probate court proceedings and goes directly to the person it's left to. This book provides a thorough explanation of how a living trust works and how to create one, how to transfer property to the trust and how to amend or revoke it at any time. Includes forms and instructions. Valid in all states except Louisiana.

The fail-safe plan for ensuring one's final wishes are respected Advanced directives and living wills have improved our ability to dictate end-of-life care, but even these cannot guaran­tee that we will be allowed the dignity of a natural death. Designed by two sisters-one a doctor, one a lawyer-and drawing on their decades of experience, the five-step Compassion Protocol outlined in A Better Way of Dying offers a simple and effective framework for leaving caretakers concrete, unambiguous, and legally binding instructions about your wishes for your last days. Meant for people in every walk of life-from the elderly, to those in the early stages of mentally degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, to healthy young people planning for an unpredictable future-this book creates space for a discussion we all must have if we wish to ensure comfort and control at the end of our lives..

One of the country's most distinguished scholars presents a brilliantly original approach to the twin dilemmas of abortion and euthanasia, showing why they arouse such volcanic controversy and how we as a society can reconcile our values of life and individual liberty.

The Supreme Court has ruled that states may prohibit physician-assisted suicide. Expressing the views of his fellow justices, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote, "Americans are engaged in an earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality, and practicality of physician-assisted suicide. Our holding permits this debate to continue." Regulating How We Die is certain to be a landmark contribution to that debate. Dr. Linda Emanuel--one of America's most influential medical ethicists--has assembled leading experts to provide not only a clear account of the arguments for and against physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia but also historical, empirical, and legal perspectives on this complicated issue. These contributors include Marcia Angell, George Annas, Susan Wolf, and many others. The important questions are addressed here, including: What does mercy dictate? Does physician-assisted suicide honor or violate autonomy? Is it more dignified than natural death? Is this decision purely a private matter? Will legalizing physician-assisted suicide put us on a slippery slope toward involuntary euthanasia? And, in an analysis of data not available in any other book, what can we learn from Holland, the only country in which physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal? Regulating How We Die will be essential reading for anyone who has been handed a terminal diagnosis, for people close to those facing such a diagnosis, for professionals, including physicians, nurses, pastors, lawyers, legislators--indeed, for anyone who has considered the moral and political debate over doctor-assisted suicide.

This book helps Californians, and their families avoid problems if they ever become unable to make health care or financial decisions for themselves. It contains forms and instructions for completing these documents: California Adbance Health Care Directive, Do Not Resuscitate Order, California Durable Power of Attorney for Finances. All forms available as tearouts and on CDROM.

The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia provides the most thorough overview of the ethical and legal issues raised by assisted suicide and euthanasia--as well as the most comprehensive argument against their legalization--ever published.In clear terms accessible to the general reader, Neil Gorsuch thoroughly assesses the strengths and weaknesses of leading contemporary ethical arguments for assisted suicide and euthanasia. He explores evidence and case histories from the Netherlands and Oregon, where the practices have been legalized. He analyzes libertarian and autonomy-based arguments for legalization as well as the impact of key U.S. Supreme Court decisions on the debate. And he examines the history and evolution of laws and attitudes regarding assisted suicide and euthanasia in American society.After assessing the strengths and weaknesses of arguments for assisted suicide and euthanasia, Gorsuch builds a nuanced, novel, and powerful moral and legal argument against legalization, one based on a principle that, surprisingly, has largely been overlooked in the debate--the idea that human life is intrinsically valuable and that intentional killing is always wrong. At the same time, the argument Gorsuch develops leaves wide latitude for individual patient autonomy and the refusal of unwanted medical treatment and life-sustaining care, permitting intervention only in cases where an intention to kill is present.Those on both sides of the assisted suicide question will find Gorsuch's analysis to be a thoughtful and stimulating contribution to the debate about one of the most controversial public policy issues of our day.

Prominent observers complain that public discourse in America is shallow and unedifying. This debased condition is often attributed to, among other things, the resurgence of religion in public life. Steven Smith argues that this diagnosis has the matter backwards: it is not primarily religion but rather the strictures of secular rationalism that have drained our modern discourse of force and authenticity. Thus, Rawlsian “public reason” filters appeals to religion or other “comprehensive doctrines” out of public deliberation. But these restrictions have the effect of excluding our deepest normative commitments, virtually assuring that the discourse will be shallow. Furthermore, because we cannot defend our normative positions without resorting to convictions that secular discourse deems inadmissible, we are frequently forced to smuggle in those convictions under the guise of benign notions such as freedom or equality. Smith suggests that this sort of smuggling is pervasive in modern secular discourse. He shows this by considering a series of controversial, contemporary issues, including the Supreme Court’s assisted-suicide decisions, the “harm principle,” separation of church and state, and freedom of conscience. He concludes by suggesting that it is possible and desirable to free public discourse of the constraints associated with secularism and “public reason.”

Margaret Pabst Battin has established a reputation as one of the top philosophers working in bioethics today. This work is a sequel to Battin's 1994 volume The Least Worst Death. The last ten years have seen fast-moving developments in end-of-life issues, from the legalization of physician-assisted suicide in Oregon and the Netherlands, to a furor over proposed restrictions of scheduled drugs used for causing death, and the development of "NuTech" methods of assistance in dying. Battin's new collection covers a remarkably wide range of end-of-life topics, including suicide prevention, AIDS, suicide bombing, serpent-handling and other religious practices that pose a risk of death, genetic prognostication, suicide in old age, global justice and the "duty to die." It also examines suicide, physician-assisted suicide, and euthanasia in both American and international contexts.As with the earlier volume, these new essays are theoretically adroit but draw richly from historical sources, fictional techniques, and ample factual material.