[.ca] Medical Ethics: Principles, Persons, and Problems (ISBN 0875522610)

Excellent and just short of perfect.:
This book was a great help to me in determining my own beliefs on the tough issues of medical ethics. We need more Christians to write such literature--literature that takes on sticky areas and hot topics in conduct, using The Scriptures as the ultimate standard. Everything was argued and defended well, with the exception of one minor point in Frame's view of abortion. While the report on abortion in the book is excellent otherwise, it makes the biblically indefensible claim that abortion is justified in cases where the mother's life is in danger, and backs the idea with fallacious arguments from biblical passages regarding self-defense. An unborn child cannot aggress against his or her mother, and in all biblical provisions for self-defense killing, if the person who could be killed were to live, he or she would be prosecutable by a just and godly civil magistrate. Obviously it would be absurd to think of prosecuting a child upon birth for the murder or assault of his or her mother, and thus Frame's argument for this point fails. The belief that we can take innocent life in order to preserve other life would, if taken to its logical conclusion, justify all sorts of atrocities which Frame himself would acknowledge to be sinful (i.e., killing an innocent child at the direction of a gunman who says he will kill someone else or even two people if you do not do so; killing an innocent man to aquire medicine for one's wife). We may never take an innocent life, for noble ends cannot justify sinful means. We are Christians, not utilitarians, after all. This point aside, however, the book is fantastic and receives my hearty recommendation.

A Big Help:
Frame's book proved profoundly helpful to me as I had to make the last medical decisions for both of my parents. Uncertainty and guilt can overwhelm decision makers because they don't have time to think things through and because they have not prepared in advance. This book will help overcome, at least, in the preparation. Thank you John Frame.