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Considers the social dimensions of Washington state's Initiative 119 which allows doctors to provide `aid-in-dying' to certain patients. How all civilized societies have developed laws to reduce the occasions on which one person is allowed to kill another person; Why the principle of freedom should not be extended to assisted suicide or active euthanasia; How such practices threaten the future security of the living.

Challenges the prochoice movement to combine a strong commitment to legal freedom and choice with substantive moral examination. Looks at abortion as a case study of the problems of the pluralistic proposition; Abortion shouldn't be an alternative to social policy reforms; In its own long-term interests, the prochoice movement should be one of choice and moral seriousness.

Describes important societal priorities in health care. Chronic illnesses; Focusing on the population as a whole; Providing basic care; The caring response.

Consideration of euthanasia and health care costs by a physician who has written about this in a controversial book, `Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society'; Consideration of Western tradition and changing attitudes; The euthanasia debate; Resources for allocating health care; Metaphysical, moral and medical issues; Voluntary choice of treatment; useless and financially burdensome treatment; Secondary standards.

Questions United States President George Bush's new allegiance to the United Nations (UN). How past presidents have often discounted the UN; Efforts of the Bush administration to gain UN support for its Gulf War policy; Overview of his recent speech praising the UN; Why his words have been greeted with skepticism.