In this book, Norman Cantor analyzes the legal and moral status of people with profound mental disabilities -- those with extreme cognitive impairments that prevent their exercise of medical self-determination. He proposes a legal and moral framework for surrogate medical decision making on their behalf. The issues Cantor explores will be of interest to professionals in law, medicine, psychology, philosophy, and ethics, as well as to parents, guardians, and health care providers who face perplexing issues in the context of surrogate medical decision making.The profoundly mentally disabled are thought by some moral philosophers to lack the minimum cognitive ability for personhood. Countering this position, Cantor advances both theoretical and practical arguments for according them full legal and moral status. He also argues that the concept of intrinsic human dignity should have an integral role in shaping the bounds of surrogate decision making. Thus, he claims, while profoundly mentally disabled persons are not entitled to make their own medical decisions, respect for intrinsic human dignity dictates their right to have a conscientious surrogate make medical decisions on their behalf. Cantor discusses the criteria that bind such surrogates. He asserts, contrary to popular wisdom, that the best interests of the disabled person are not always the determinative standard: the interests of family or others can sometimes be considered. Surrogates may even, consistent with the intrinsic human dignity standard, sometimes authorize tissue donation or participation in nontherapeutic medical research by profoundly disabled persons. Intrinsic human dignity limits the occasions for such decisions and dictates close attention to the preferences and feelings of the profoundly disabled persons themselves. Cantor also analyzes the underlying philosophical rationale that makes these decision-making criteria consistent with law and morals.
Norman Cantor is Professor of Law Emeritus and Nathan Jacobs Scholar Emeritus at Rutgers University School of Law, Newark. He has been widely published in legal and medical journals on the topic of the legal handling of dying medical patients and has 3 prior books in that field.
Norman Cantor's latest book is "After We Die: The Life and Times of the Human Cadaver." (AWD). AWD explores the physical, legal and moral constraints applicable to various means of disposal of human remains. The book was named runner up for the American Publishers' Association's
2010 PROSE award for excellence in the field of Law and Legal Studies.
AWD examines control of a cadaver with regard not only to mode and place of disposition of remains, but also to use of cadaveric body parts in education, research, tissue transplant, and procreation. AWD ascribes enforceable rights to the insentient cadaver, not just to survivors reacting to what is happening to a corpse. One such right is to have a deceased's prior choices upheld, and AWD urges advance planning for enhancing the ultimate impact of a life via productive cadaver roles in medical education, scientific research, and tissue transplantation.
AWD was reviewed in the Nov. 18, 2010, New York Journal of Books by Dr. Daniel A. Graubert, a retired physician and the former Director of
Interventional Pain Medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. The reviewer praises the book's "fascinating anecdotes" and "interesting stories" presented in a "light" writing style. The review concludes:
"After We Die is a fascinating study of cadavers, presented in great detail. It is aimed at readers with an interest in serious books about bio-ethics and medico-legal controversies. * * * Although the legal and medical issues are dealt with in quite a bit of detail, they are presented in a way that makes them accessible to those who don't necessarily have expertise in the fields. Although death is a universal experience, few of us have looked beyond the simple choice between burial and cremation. For those who share the author's curiosity, Mr. Cantor has provided an informative, thorough, and often entertaining explication of the fate of our bodies."
As to moral standing of cadavers, AWD analyses the "quasi-human" status attributed to remains and the protections therefore accorded to cadavers. The book reflects on the limits that "post-mortem human dignity" poses on disposal choices by either a decedent or an agent entitled to make final dispositions.
Professor Cantor is a cum laude graduate of Princeton University and a magna cum laude graduate of Columbia Law School. He has served as a visiting professor at Columbia University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Seton Hall Law School, and Tel Aviv University. He currently divides his time between Hoboken NJ and Tel Aviv.
