One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz
by superfastreader on March 26, 2007
Originally posted at: Reading is my Superpower
tags: dean koontz, fiction, paranormal, thriller, utilitarian bioethics,Synopsis:
Young Leilani has a deformed hand and a brace on her leg–and she’s just told her alcoholic ex-con neighbor that her differences are why her deranged doctor stepfather and whacked-out druggie mother are going to kill her unless she’s abducted by aliens when she turns 10.
Review:
I read this book because it was recommended by Wesley Smith, a leading voice against utilitarianism bioethics, which is the concept that death is the optimal choice for anyone living a less-than-perfect existence, physically speaking. Rather than “first do no harm,” doctors are succumbing to a growing trend in believing that many lives are simply not worth living, regardless of the will to live of the patient or patient’s family. These philosophers differentiate themselves from Nazi eugenicists by arguing that their standards for determining who lives and who does not are better–but the end result is the same. Death to the physically and mentally disabled, and to the terminally ill.
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