Let Me Decide: What You Need to Know «Now» About End-of-Life Care. Rev. ed.

Alan Belk is a sessional instructor in the Philosophy Department at the
University of Guelph.

Molloy focuses on two issues in this revised edition of a book
originally published in 1989. First, individuals must acknowledge the
inevitability of death; as a society, we tend to resist this
acknowledgement. Second, individuals must desire to exert some control
over their own demise and must announce this desire and the degree of
control before the event. This is no small or easy matter, because,
apart from the culture of denial, there are powerful religious,
political, and medical institutions that hold that any life, no matter
what its quality, is better than none. Witness Terry Schiavo.

Everyone should have a copy of this book, if only to make them aware
that they have the option of exerting some control over their own
demise. Molloy presents a clear discussion of the options and
possibilities in straightforward language. The book contains documents
that can be used to make one’s wishes known, and instructions for
making these wishes known to potential caregivers. In the chapter on
life-threatening illness, for example, Molloy describes the four levels
of care: palliative, limited, surgical, and intensive. Individuals need
to know about this in order to specify how much care they want to
receive should they end up with some form of terminal cancer.