Features November 1993
A review of Life’s Dominion by Mr. Dworkin.
According to the publisher's blurb, Life's Dominion,[1] Ronald Dworkin’s defense of abortion and euthanasia, is “lucid, imaginative … and brilliantly original.” In the “advance praise” printed on the dust jacket the president of the American Civil Liberties Union, Nadine Strossen, describes the work as careful, clear, path-breaking, and stunningly insightful, Susan Sontag says it is fresh, agile, and improving, and Joan Didion calls it a miracle. These good opinions, and Dworkin’s international renown—he is the author of three other books, a professor of law at New York University, and University Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford— will probably ensure a fairly wide readership. All the more important, then, that the book should receive at least one detailed critical assessment as well as the me-too mega-hype to be expected in such cases.
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