Ian F. Fletcher's Books

A Merciful End

The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America

By: Ian Dowbiggin

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A Merciful End

The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America

By: Ian Dowbiggin

While it may seem that debates over euthanasia began with Jack Kervorkian, the practice of mercy killing extends back to Ancient Greece and beyond. In America, the debate has raged for well over a century. Now, in A Merciful End, Ian Dowbiggin offers the first full-scale historical account of one of the most controversial reform movements in America. Drawing on unprecedented access to the archives of the Euthanasia Society of America, interviews with important figures in the movement today, and flashpoint cases such as the tragic fate of Karen Ann Quinlan, Dowbiggin tells the dramatic story of the men and women who struggled throughout the twentieth century to change the nation's attitude--and its laws--regarding mercy killing. In tracing the history of the euthanasia movement, he documents its intersection with other progressive social causes: women's suffrage, birth control, abortion rights, as well as its uneasy pre-WWII alliance with eugenics. Such links brought euthanasia activists into fierce conflict with Judeo-Christian institutions who worried that "the right to die" might become a "duty to die." Indeed, Dowbiggin argues that by joining a sometimes overzealous quest to maximize human freedom with a desire to "improve" society, the euthanasia movement has been dogged by the fear that mercy killing could be extended to persons with disabilities, handicapped newborns, unconscious geriatric patients, lifelong criminals, and even the poor. Justified or not, such fears have stalled the movement, as more and more Americans now prefer better end-of-life care than wholesale changes in euthanasia laws. For anyone trying to decide whether euthanasia offers a humane alternative to prolonged suffering or violates the "sanctity of life," A Merciful End provides fascinating and much-needed historical context.

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Page Count

284

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0198035152

ISBN 13

9780198035152

The Sterilization Movement and Global Fertility in the Twentieth Century

By: Ian Robert Dowbiggin

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The Sterilization Movement and Global Fertility in the Twentieth Century

By: Ian Robert Dowbiggin

Many would be surprised to learn that the preferred method of birth control in the United States today is actually surgical sterilization. This book takes an historical look at the sterilization movement in post-World War II America, a revolution in modern contraceptive behavior. Focusing on leaders of the sterilization movement from the 1930's through the turn of the century, this book explores the historic linkages between environment, civil liberties, eugenics, population control, sex education, marriage counseling, and birth control movements in the 20th-century United States. Sterilization has been variously advocated as a medical procedure for defusing the "population bomb," expanding individual rights, liberating women from the fear of pregnancy, strengthening marriage, improving the quality of life of the mentally disabled, or reducing the incidence of hereditary disorders. From an historical standpoint, support for free and unfettered access to sterilization services has aroused opposition in some circles, and was considered a "liberal cause" in post-World War II America. This story demonstrates how a small group of reformers helped to alter traditional notions of gender and sexuality.

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Page Count

281

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195188586

ISBN 13

9780195188585

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms

30+ years of decisions that shape Canadian life

By: Ian Greene

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The Charter of Rights and Freedoms

30+ years of decisions that shape Canadian life

By: Ian Greene

Canadas Charter of Rights and Freedoms has transformed Canadian life since it was adopted as part of the Canadian constitution in 1982. The Charter requires judges to make decisions on a wide range of issues that affect all Canadians. In doing so, the courts play a major role in citizens lives. Because of the Charter: - The law against prostitution was struck down. - The Harper government"s treatment of child soldier Omar Khadr was found to violate his rights. - Vancouvers Insite safe injection site was kept open, overriding a federal government decision requiring it to shut down. Ian Greene is a political scientist, and his focus in this book is to highlight the many significant ways the Charter shapes Canadian life. After providing background on the creation and implementation of the Charter, he describes its impact on a wide range of issues aboriginal affairs, voting rights, freedom of religion, the right to strike, and language rights, among others. Greene describes key decisions in these areas and comments on the often-conflicting views of the judges deciding them. Even though the Charter is a legal document, debated by lawyers and decided by judges, Greene approaches his subject with an eye on the political impact the Charter has on governments and ordinary citizens. Public discussion of the Charter is often framed around the question of who should make these important decisions elected politicians or unelected judges. This book provides a clear understanding of how the Charter works and how ordinary citizens have succeeded or failed to win change from the courts. It offers information that people on every side of public discussion can use regarding the role of the Charter in Canadian life.

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Page Count

442

Publisher

James Lorimer & Company

Published Date

ISBN 10

1459406613

ISBN 13

9781459406612

Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education

By: Ian Green

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Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education

By: Ian Green

This volume is the first attempt to assess the impact of both humanism and Protestantism on the education offered to a wide range of adolescents in the hundreds of grammar schools operating in England between the Reformation and the Enlightenment. By placing that education in the context of Lutheran, Calvinist and Jesuit education abroad, it offers an overview of the uses to which Latin and Greek were put in English schools, and identifies the strategies devised by clergy and laity in England for coping with the tensions between classical studies and Protestant doctrine. It also offers a reassessment of the role of the 'godly' in English education, and demonstrates the many ways in which a classical education came to be combined with close support for the English Crown and established church. One of the major sources used is the school textbooks which were incorporated into the 'English Stock' set up by leading members of the Stationers' Company of London and reproduced in hundreds of thousands of copies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although the core of classical education remained essentially the same for two centuries, there was a growing gulf between the methods by which classics were taught in elite institutions such as Winchester and Westminster and in the many town and country grammar schools in which translations or bilingual versions of many classical texts were given to weaker students. The success of these new translations probably encouraged editors and publishers to offer those adults who had received little or no classical education new versions of works by Aesop, Cicero, Ovid, Virgil, Seneca and Caesar. This fascination with ancient Greece and Rome left its mark not only on the lifestyle and literary tastes of the educated elite, but also reinforced the strongly moralistic outlook of many of the English laity who equated virtue and good works with pleasing God and meriting salvation.

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Page Count

407

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1317119614

ISBN 13

9781317119616

Book's by Ian F. Fletcher

A Merciful End

A Merciful End

The Sterilization Movement and Global Fertility in the Twentieth Century

The Sterilization Movement and Global Fertility in the Twentieth Century

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education

Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education

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