Daniel Hillyard

Read the Authors' Op-Ed on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sin No More offers a vivid examination of some of the most morally and politically disputed issues of our time: abortion, gay rights, assisted suicide, stem cell research, and legalized gambling. These are moral values issues, all of which are hotly, sometimes violently, contested in America. The authors cover these issues in depth, looking at the nature of efforts to initiate reforms, to define constituencies, to mobilize resources, to frame debates, and to shape public opinion—all in an effort to achieve social change, create, or re-write legislation. Of the issues under scrutiny only legalized gambling has managed to achieve widespread acceptance despite moral qualms from some. Sin No More seeks to show what these laws and attitudes tell us about Americans’ approach to law and morality, and about our changing conceptions of sin, crime and illegality. Running through each chapter is a central tension: that American attitudes and laws toward these victimless crimes are going through a process of normalization. Despite conservative rhetoric the authors argue that the tide is turning on each of these issues, with all moving toward acceptance, or decriminalization, in society. Each issue is at a different point in terms of this acceptance, and each has traveled different roads to achieve their current status.

Read the Authors' Op-Ed on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sin No More offers a vivid examination of some of the most morally and politically disputed issues of our time: abortion, gay rights, assisted suicide, stem cell research, and legalized gambling. These are moral values issues, all of which are hotly, sometimes violently, contested in America. The authors cover these issues in depth, looking at the nature of efforts to initiate reforms, to define constituencies, to mobilize resources, to frame debates, and to shape public opinion—all in an effort to achieve social change, create, or re-write legislation. Of the issues under scrutiny only legalized gambling has managed to achieve widespread acceptance despite moral qualms from some. Sin No More seeks to show what these laws and attitudes tell us about Americans' approach to law and morality, and about our changing conceptions of sin, crime and illegality. Running through each chapter is a central tension: that American attitudes and laws toward these victimless crimes are going through a process of normalization. Despite conservative rhetoric the authors argue that the tide is turning on each of these issues, with all moving toward acceptance, or decriminalization, in society. Each issue is at a different point in terms of this acceptance, and each has traveled different roads to achieve their current status.

Dying Right provides an overview of the Death With Dignity movement, a history of how and why Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide, and an analysis of the future of physician-assisted suicide. Engaging the question of how to balance a patient's sense about the right way to die, a physician's role as a healer, and the state's interest in preventing killing, Dying Right captures the ethical, legal, moral, and medical complexities involved in this ongoing debate.

Dying Right provides an overview of the Death With Dignity movement, a history of how and why Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide, and an analysis of the future of physician-assisted suicide. Engaging the question of how to balance a patient's sense about the right way to die, a physician's role as a healer, and the state's interest in preventing killing, Dying Right captures the ethical, legal, moral, and medical complexities involved in this ongoing debate.