Includes bibliographical references (p. [173]-177) and index.

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1: Medical euthanasia and assisted suicide: a twentieth-century issue -- 2: 1930s and 1940s: from the King of England to the Holocaust -- 3: 1950s: the first Anglo-American prosecutions for medical euthanasia and the resulting academic debate -- 4: 1960s-1980s: decriminalizing suicide and non-voluntary euthanasia of those in persistent vegetative states -- 5: 1990s and Jack "Dr Death" Kevorkian: from physician-assisted suicide to medical euthanasia -- 6: 1990s: the non-Michigan parallel text of doctor prosecution and initial failed legislative efforts -- 7: Legalizing and implementing physician-assisted suicide in Oregon in the 1990s and 2000s -- 8: 2000s: post-millennium case studies of state reactions to euthanasia and assisted suicide -- Concluding commentary -- Appendix: Table of cases, legislation, proposed legislation, and initiatives -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index.