A01=Stephanie O'Connor
assisted death services
Author_Stephanie O'Connor
autonomy
beneficence
bioethicsConstitution of Ireland
Category=JBFV4
Category=JHBZ
Category=QRVL
compassion
difficult conversations
dignity
Eighth Amendment
end-of-life
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethical dilemmas
forthcoming
gestation
maternal-foetal conflict
Medical Assistance in Dying
medicine
moral disaster?
moral quandaries
morality
mortality
P.P.v.H.S.E.
palliative care
paradox
posthumous
prenatal
somatic
theology
Product details
- ISBN 9781914979552
- Dimensions: 111 x 179mm
- Publication Date: 06 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Haus Publishing
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
For most of human history, death was shaped by circumstance, custom, and human presence. Today, it is increasingly mediated by medicine, law, and the language of choice. Our expanding capacity to prolong life and manage dying has outstripped the moral habits that once helped us make sense of such moments. What confronts us now is not only the question of what may be done, or what is permitted, but also how moral responsibility is borne when knowledge is partial and responsibility is dispersed.
Resisting moral certainty and procedural comfort, Stephanie O’Connor considers what is revealed and obscured when complex situations are reduced to questions of choice or rights alone. Considering dignity as a guiding moral concern at the limits of life, and drawing on healthcare ethics, case law, and contemporary debates – including those surrounding assisted dying and artificial intelligence – this book examines how decisions made under conditions of vulnerability are shaped not only by autonomy and consent, but by dependence, unequal power, and institutional practice.
Acutely attentive to the tensions that exist between compassion and restraint, as well as personal agency and shared responsibility, O’Connor does not propose solutions or offer moral closure. Instead, she asks what is owed: to those whose lives are ending, to those who care for them, and to the fragile shared moral life that binds personal decisions to their public consequences.
Resisting moral certainty and procedural comfort, Stephanie O’Connor considers what is revealed and obscured when complex situations are reduced to questions of choice or rights alone. Considering dignity as a guiding moral concern at the limits of life, and drawing on healthcare ethics, case law, and contemporary debates – including those surrounding assisted dying and artificial intelligence – this book examines how decisions made under conditions of vulnerability are shaped not only by autonomy and consent, but by dependence, unequal power, and institutional practice.
Acutely attentive to the tensions that exist between compassion and restraint, as well as personal agency and shared responsibility, O’Connor does not propose solutions or offer moral closure. Instead, she asks what is owed: to those whose lives are ending, to those who care for them, and to the fragile shared moral life that binds personal decisions to their public consequences.
Stephanie O’Connor is the winner of the 2025 Hubert Butler Essay Prize. Her writing examines ethical and legal questions in healthcare and public life, with particular attention to moral agency, research, practices of care, and responsibility.
