Life's Worth.

• Author: Dyck, Arthur J.
• Position: Book Review

Dyck, Arthur J. Life's Worth. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002; .

With the growing trend toward acceptance of physician-assisted suicide, even Christians are beginning to factor the possibility into their ethical understandings. Would it be compassionate to acquiesce in a terminally ill person's request to end it all? Arthur J. Dyck, professor of population ethics at Harvard University, says no, and this book clearly and persuasively lays out his reasons for saying so.

Professor Dyck begins by framing the question largely in secular terms, drawing on philosophers such as Kant and Hobbes and on the long Western tradition that prohibits killing and places a high value on human life. He critiques current arguments for assisted suicide by pointing out how its...