The new technologies of birth and death

the long version

This volume contains the insights provided the 122 bishops in attendance at this historic and unprecedented conference by two doctors, two lawyers, and five theologians. It embraces subjects as old as abortion and contraception and as new as in vitro fertilization and the ovulation method of natural family planning. It reviews the new efforts to determine if human death has occurred even though vital signs are artificially maintained. And it explores the human and legal implications of withdrawing life-support technology and permitting death to occur.