Overview

Lost Lullaby makes one think the unthinkable: how a loving parent can pray for the death of her child. It is Deborah Alecson's story of her daughter, Andrea, who was born after a full-term, uneventful pregnancy, weighing 7 pounds 11 ounces, perfectly formed and exquisitely featured. But an inexplicable accident at birth left her with massive and irreversible brain damage. On a vitality scale of one to ten, her initial reading was one. And so begins Deborah Alecson's heart-rending struggle to come to terms with two desperately conflicting and powerful emotions: her desire to nurture and love Andrea, and her desire to do everything in her power to bring about her death. Told in a mother's voice, with a simplicity and directness that heighten the intensity of the drama that unfolds, Lost Lullaby reaffirms the human dimension of what is too often an abstract and purely theoretical discussion. During the two months that Andrea spent in the Infant Intensive Care Unit, Ms. Alecson spoke with lawyers, doctors, and ethicists in an effort to understand the legal, medical and ethical implications of her plight. She recounts those discussions and describes legal cases that have a direct bearing on her own situation. Her battle-both in coming to the agonizing decision to let her child die and in convincing the medical and legal establishments to respect that decision-will engender empathy for the plight of many families, and an awareness of the need to use medical technology with restraint. It is a must-read for everyone who cares about how we make life-and-death decisions on these new medical, legal, and moral frontiers.

Full Product Details

9781623520700

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

"Deborah Golden Alecson is a thanatologist and adjunct professor. She designed and teaches a course in medical humanities for the School of Liberal Arts at Excelsior College. She has taught ""Ethics of Health Care,"" ""Death, Dying and Bereavement,"" ""Spirituality in Life Transitions,"" and ""The Sociology of Health and Illness"" for the Schools of Health Science and Nursing at Excelsior College. She has created a course in thanatology that she teaches for Williams College during their Winter Study semester. She writes a monthly newspaper column called ""Musings on Mortality."" She lectures on and writes about dying well in a death-phobic culture as well as other topics. Her website is: http: //www.deborahgoldenalecson.com/ Director of Bioethics, Center for Humans & Nature"

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available