In this powerful and probing look at the reality of everyday choices in neonatal intensive care units, Renée Anspach explores the life-and-death dilemmas that have fueled national debate. Using case studies taken during sixteen months of extensive interviewing and observation, Anspach examines the roles of parents, doctors, nurses, and bioethicists in deciding whether critically ill newborns—be they premature, terminally ill, or severely malformed—should be saved by medical technology, or at least kept alive a little longer.

Renée R. Anspach is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan.

"This book is a clear challenge for further consideration of the nature of our moral life and of how we address the complex ethical questions that continue to perplex us. . . . [Anspach] has written a valuable and fascinating book that will be of interest to a wide audience."—Mark J. Hanson, Society

"Anspach's book provides a readable and, in my view, largely accurate account of how intensive-care professionals approach life-and-death decisions. We all have much to learn in reflecting on the process she details."—Joel Frader, M.D., Journal of General Internal Medicine

"In making an argument for the social science paradigm in bioethics, Anspach's work is first-rate: coherent in its presentation, well organized and flawlessly written. . . . [Anspach] emerges as one of the finest theoretically ambitious field workers in medical sociology today."—Daniel F. Chambliss, Contemporary Sociology

1996 Robert K. Merton Award, Science, Knowledge, and Technology section of the American Sociological Association