How can Christian ethics make a significant contribution to health care ethics in today's Western, pluralistic society? Robin Gill examines the 'moral gaps' in secular accounts of health care ethics and the tensions within specifically theological accounts. He explores the healing stories in the Synoptic Gospels, identifying four core virtues present within them - compassion, care, faith and humility - that might bring greater depth to a purely secular interpretation of health care ethics. Each of these virtues is examined in turn, using a range of topical issues including health care rationing, genetics, HIV/AIDS, withholding/withdrawing nutrition from PVS patients, and the empirical evidence which suggests a connection between religion and health. Professor Gill also argues that these four virtues are shared by other major religious and humanistic traditions and that, together with secular principles, they can enrich health care ethics even in a pluralistic society.

A biblically informed guidebook for Christians facing difficult health care decisions, from the making of life (infertility, organ donation, cloning) and taking of life (abortion, euthanasia) to the technologically driven faking of life (genetic engineering, etc.).

Christian Ethics and Nursing Practice shows how the religious and moral teachings of the Christian Bible compare, contrast, and correlate with the ethical standards of modern nursing, as stated in the Code of Ethics for Nurses. It describes four main strands of moral discourse in the Bible—law, holiness, wisdom, and prophecy—and shows the relevance of those strands for contemporary bedside and advanced practice nursing. The work could serve as a textbook for courses in nursing ethics at Christian colleges and universities or as a guidebook for practicing nurses, who have devoted their lives to caring for the sick, the injured, the elderly, the disabled, and the dying as a way of living out their commitment to Jesus Christ.

Clinical ethics is a relatively new discipline within medicine, generated not so much by the Can we . . . ? questions of fact and prognosis that physicians usually address, but primarily by the more uncomfortable gray areas having to do with Should we . . . ? questions: / Should we use a feeding tube for Mom? / How should we deal with our baby about to be born with life-threatening anomalies? / Should our son be taken off dialysis, even though he ll die without it? / What should we do with our mentally ill sister, who has proven that she is untreatable? / In this book Robert Orr draws on his extensive medical knowledge and experience to offer a wealth of guidance regarding real-life dilemmas in clinical ethics. Replete with instructive case studies, Medical Ethics and the Faith Factor is an invaluable resource that reintroduces the human element to a discussion so often detached from the very people it claims to concern.

Schweiker develops a powerful new theory of responsibility articulated in terms of Christian faith.

This book offers an interdisciplinary effort to address global health issues grounded on a human rights framework seen from the perspective of those who are more vulnerable to be sick and die prematurely: the poor. Combining his scholarship and service in impoverished communities, the author examines the connection between poverty and health inequalities from an ethical perspective that considers contributions from different disciplines and the voices of the poor.

Christian health care professionals in our secular and pluralistic society often face uncertainty about the place religious faith holds in today's medical practice. Through an examination of a virtue-based ethics, this book proposes a theological view of medical ethics that helps the Christian physician reconcile faith, reason, and professional duty. Edmund D. Pellegrino and David C. Thomasma trace the history of virtue in moral thought, and they examine current debate about a virtue ethic's place in contemporary bioethics. Their proposal balances theological ethics, based on the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, with contemporary medical ethics, based on the principles of beneficence, justice, and autonomy. The result is a theory of clinical ethics that centers on the virtue of charity and is manifest in practical moral decisions. Using Christian bioethical principles, the authors address today's divisive issues in medicine. For health care providers and all those involved in the fields of ethics and religion, this volume shows how faith and reason can combine to create the best possible healing relationship between health care professional and patient.

Modern medicine has unprecedented power to heal human beings of physical and mental disease, to keep them health, and even to improve the human race. This power can be used to humanize life or to dehumanize and destroy it. It can be used justly to benefit all, or it can be used to benefit the few at the expense of the many. How to use such power is a question of values and, therefore, of individual and group decisions which are not merely technical but ethical. Two reasons have induced us to add to the already extensive literature on medical-ethical and bioethical topics. First, too much of this literature focuses on a few controversial but sometimes minor topics, while neglecting the broader and major issues affecting human health and the health care professions. Second, we want to assist Christian, and especially Catholic, health care professionals and health care facilities faced with the difficult and often puzzling responsibility of giving witness to a long tradition of humanistic health care, while working with other professionals and government agencies committed to diverse value systems. -from Introduction.

"An excellent textbook, from a balanced Catholic perspective."-Paul Flaman, S.T.D., Professor of Moral Theology, St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta.

Rev. ed. of: Introduction to health care ethics. c2007.