"Are you alive?. Thus begins this intriguing book that examines the legal relationship between life and death. Through vivid examples ranging from embryo research to organ transplantation to assisted suicide, Foley (Florida International Univ. College of Law) demonstrates the complications that belie her seemingly simple opening question. She argues convincingly that even the attempts to define life and death as antonyms cannot dispel the gray areas of public policy such as the legal status of partial birth abortions, the treatment of patients in persistent vegetative states, or whether death should be defined as irreversible cessation of cardiopulmonary or brain function. Chapters illuminate disparate (even desperate) attempts by state statutes, common law, and constitutional law to govern life and death practices amid the complicating factors of ethics, science, medicine, economics, and cultural diversity. But rather than argue for clarity and uniformity, Foley maintains that such ambiguity and diversity may be necessary. Even more provocative is her final assessment that concern for a right to life is being overshadowed by a right to die--and indeed, an obligation to die. Her engaging, accessible writing style highly recommends the book for classroom use and library collections. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. S. Behuniak Le Moyne College

Foley (Florida Intl. Univ. Coll. of Law) presents a profoundly intelligent, distinctive, and disturbing book. In seven short chapters, she dissects the legality behind what makes a person alive or dead. The first chapter addresses such subjects as feticide, wrongful conception, the freezing of humans and body parts, and frozen embryos. The discussion of legal contortions that courts make to decide these cases segues nicely into the court's definition of death. The book devotes succeeding chapters to the Uniform Definition of Death Act, which defines the difference between being brain-dead while the body functions and being fully dead from cardiac arrest. As the author coolly points out, medical advances and the need for organ donations have expanded the legal definition of death to outweigh what constitutes being alive. VERDICT With extensive endnotes and a scholarly tone, this work will be appreciated by legislators, serious readers, and legal and medical professionals.-Harry Charles, Attorney at Law, St. Louis (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.