Matters Of Life And Death

Christopher Brasher investigates some of the terrifying problems-moral, legal, economic, which have been brought about by new advances in medicine. We hear much about the ethical problem of heart transplants, about fertilising a human egg in a test-tube, but these are the problems of experimental medicine. There is only the remotest chance that they will affect us or the doctors who attend us. But there are many other problems, also brought about by new medical techniques, which do affect us today, and which involve our doctors in the most vital of all decisions-the quality of the life which they can give us.