Description
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Death Rites and Rights by Edited by Belinda Brooks-Gordon Edited by Fatemeh Ebtehaj Edited by Jonathan Herring Edited by Martin Johnson Edited by Martin Richards Contributions by Pak Lee Chau Contributions by Hazel Biggs
Death has diverse religious social legal and medical aspects and is one of the main areas in which medicine and the law intersect. In this volume we ask: What is the meaning of death in contemporary Britain and in other cultures and how has it changed over time? The essays in this collection tackle the diverse ways in which death is now experienced in modern society in the process answering a wide variety of questions: How is death defined by law? Do the dead have legal rights? What is one allowed to have and not have done to ones body after death? What are the rights of next of kin in this respect? What compensation exists for death and how is death valued? What is happening to the law on euthanasia and suicide? Is there a human right to die? What is the principle of sanctity of life? What of criminal offences against the dead? How are the traditions of death still played out in religion? How have customs and traditions of the disposal of bodies and funerals changed? What happens to donated bodies in the biomedical setting where anatomical education is permitted? What processes are employed by police when investigating suspicious deaths? What of representations of death?These and other questions are the subject of this challenging and diverse set of essays.show more