Title: Medicine and Christian Morality  Third Revised and Updated Edition  Author: Thomas J. O'Donnell, S.J.  ISBN: 0-8189-0765-7  Paperback: xvi + 350 pp.  Price: $19.95 + shipping  To Order call:  1 800-343-ALBA (2522)  Please have your Master  or Visa card ready To order online click here.

In this classic work, O'Donnell comprehensively treats law and morality, the basic principles of moral decision-making, human life, surgery and suppressive surgery, pregnancy and delivery, marriage, and professionalism in medicine. He dialogues extensively with the writings of Catholic moralists and medical experts and in several appendices gives the texts of five key papal and episcopal documents. This edition is probably as scientifically accurate, issue topical, principle precise, and magisterium faithful as any volume its length could be in areas where health care procedures posing crucial ethical questions are increasing exponentially.

 

A consultant to the United States Catholic Conference Committee for Continuing Directives for Catholic Health Facilities and the Judicial Council of the American Medical Association, Fr. Thomas J. O'Donnell, S.J. writes and lectures widely in the field of medical ethics, a specialty which has won him recognition both in the States and abroad. His book Medicine and Christian Morality has long been recognized as an indispensable text in the field.  Reviews "A few subjects will give you an idea of the contents of this book. Father O'Donnell treats of the inviolability of human life, euthanasia and suicide. Under surgery he treats of unnecessary surgery, ghost surgery, "shock" treatments, contraceptive sterilization. Under pregnancy he treats of abortion, treatment of victims of rape, induced labor. Under marriage he treats of impotence, infertility and cloning, something the English sheep have made topical... It has been suggested that technology is outpacing philosophy and ethics. I do not think that is true. The Church is greatly ignored in our day, even by some Catholics. The Church has answers in such a book as Medicine and Christian Morality." --Fr. Matthew V. Reilly, O.P. in Homiletic and Pastoral Review  "This book is well organized and easy to read. The author has the knack of making complicated medical procedures understandable to the lay reader, and he shows how basic principles apply to specific procedures. This book would make an excellent text for courses in medical ethics. Citations of the author's sources are contained in the text itself, and there is a thorough Index. Father O'Donnell has provided a great service in bringing his highly respected work up to date in this third revised edition." --Liguorian   "Medicine and Christian Morality remains a major explicatory and apologetical reference work in a field where precedent-setting actions all too often transpire apart from any encompassing and consistent theory of universally imperative, person respecting, need-rights. That the Magisterium offers such an objectively equitable framework and that Fr. O'Donnell articulates it carefully warrants the attention of everyone concerned about the adventurism and discrimination endemic to so many biomedical arenas." --John D. Finnegan, Ph.D. in Social Justice Review  Top of Page