ABSTRACT

One of the most surprising findings of this book is how far birth and death are interrelated and how these ordinary, but also extraordinary, events are in dialogue with each other. They are ordinary because everyone has been born and everyone is going to die, but birth and death are subject to debate, as we have shown, about who decides what is best for the embodied self involved. The conclusion addresses debates about embodiment, flesh and the ethical issues which arise from our exploration of relationalities of the personal and political, the personal and social and virtual and actual worlds, with an emphasis upon how life and living always feature in the dialogue between birth and death. Recognition that they happen every day does not diminish the awareness that for each person, every birth and death is momentous, whether wanted or not. Recognition, for example of mortality, is not the same as blind acceptance. Every birth and death involves life, the promise of a life, a life that has been lived and each impacts upon others.