As source material for the bioethics student, this anthology is a joy to read and refer back to. After a laconic introduction by Helga Kuhse, the book begins to situate bioethics as a discipline with articles contrasting it to law, ethics, and religion. The diverse approaches are next examined, each by an expert (Arras on the case approach, Childress on the prnciple approach, etc). Especially informative and provocative are the articles on personhood by Michael Tooley and brain death by Jeff McMahan. A sanity check is provided for bioethics teachers who wonder if they are approaching the discipline correctly in the critical review on how bioethics is taught by Catherine Myser. The book is a gold mine by experts who dispassionately present their topics cogently and clearly.

This anthology, like all other Blackwell philosophy anthologies, is a keeper. This text is comprehensive, and presents multiple viewpoints on each issue, unlike many texts, which present primarily one viewpoint.

The Blackwells Anthology on Bioethics provides a strong material based support for courses in Bioethics or applied Philopsophy. It's two best features are that it contains the articles that most Bioethics courses will require you to read (Response to Purdy, for example) and yet most of the articles are in easy to understand language and require little or no previous knowledge. Also, far from being the dry tomes one associates with philosophical essays, the articles are genuinely engaging.

There are a few articles where if you haven't read Kant or Mill before you might be stuck, but most are easy to read and some entries are written by lay people about their experiences, including one mans suicide note as an argument for euthanasia and a couples experiences of IVF.

The editorial really helps to highlight the issues in the book and it is arranged in an acessible format, so that one can skip areas that aren't of interest.

Useful to students or acaedemics (in Medicine or Philosophy) and fascinating for anyone who wants to look into this area.