Part 1. The first of life. The Supreme Court's bicentennial abortion decision : Can the 1973 abortion decisions be justly hedged? -- Abortion after the law : conscience and its problems -- The Edelin case. Part 2. The last of life. "Euthanasia" and dying well enough -- The benign neglect of defective infants -- An ingathering of other reasons for neonatal infanticide -- In the matter of Quinlan -- The strange case of Joseph Saikewicz -- The California natural death act.