369 - Abortion and Moral Theory & Priorities in Biomedical Ethics

Abortion and Moral Theory
By L. W. Sumner
Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1981. 246 pp. $16.50.

Priorities in Biomedical Ethics
By James F. Childress
Philadelphia, Westminster, 1981. 143 pp. $8.95.

Those who have read the recent basic bioethics texts and are seeking to develop and deepen their thinking should find these books both useful and interesting.

Sumner offers a detailed landscape of the current discussions on abortion, then delves more deeply and systematically into the opposing arguments before proposing what he considers a middle ground. Whether or not one accepts the proposal as such, it will reward careful attention, and two engaging further chapters offer both contexts and applications. The book's value lies in even-handed development of concepts as seen from contrasting positions.

Setting aside the abortion controversy, Childress turns attention to paternalism, euthanasia, human subjects research, resource allocation, and technology assessment. He includes both basic and new materials, orienting it (with what most will probably see as varying degrees of success) in terms of the three aspects of priority which he describes at the outset. The closing description of technology assessment as an art form has stimulating implications for the discussions which precede it.

John L. Young, CSC
School of Medicine, Yale University
New Haven, Conn.