Toward Compassion in Dying

"In the Hands of the People":
Recent Victories of the Death-With-Dignity Movement

by Barbara Dority

Several recent gains in the effort to promote compassion in dying have illustrated the importance of both grass-roots organizing and the work of courageous individuals. From the federal court decisions striking down bans on physician- assisted suicide to Dr. Kevorkian's headline-grabbing acquittals, the right to die with dignity is finally being placed where it belongs: in the hands of the people.

Physician-Assisted Suicide: "Slippery Slope" or Civil Right?

by Steve Hallock

The recent triumphs of the death-with-dignity movement are a good thing—or are they? Across the political spectrum, a number of pundits, doctors, lawyers, medical ethicists, and legal scholars have joined the debate and examined the implications—pro and con—of what has come to be called "the ultimate civil right."

Cover Story:

Deadly Relics: The Global Land Mine Plague

by Anton Foek

Land mines are a global plague: in some 64 countries, an estimated 110 million active mines lay buried beneath the soil. The human costs of these weapons are staggering: some 2,000 people are killed or mutilated by them every month, often long after the fighting has ended. Can anything be done about these deadly relics of past wars?

Forgotten Victims

by Milton Goldin

It has been 10 years since the Chernobyl disaster—the most devastating human-made environmental catastrophe in history. The true scope of the destruction may never be known, but after a decade of bungled relief efforts, corruption, and political opportunism, one thing is certain: Chernobyl was a textbook example of how not to handle a crisis.

Nuclear Industry Collapse Marks Chernobyl Anniversary

by the Worldwatch Institute

One good thing came of Chernobyl: once the disaster had demonstrated the potentially catastrophic drawbacks of nuclear power, the industrial nations put their money into developing less dangerous and more sustainable sources of energy.

On Islamic Fundamentalism

by Taslima Nasrin

The Cold War is over, but the next global conflict will involve not two competing economic systems but, rather, two competing zeitgeists—secularism and fundamentalism. Is the twenty-first century destined to become the century of religious war? And what can humanists do to stop it?

The Wound and the Covenant

by Melvin Seiden

A tourist in Aleppo munches his savory pistachios and ponders the connections between Shakespeare's Othello, ritual and taboo, the theory and practice of circumcision, and the occasional ironies of cultural difference—and discovers that there are more things in heaven and earth than he can comfortably fit into his philosophy. 

Copyright © 2002, the American Humanist Association