Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 31 No. 2, 2011.
Original scientific paper
Euthanasia in the Perspective of Christian Faith and Legal Science
Marko Trajković
; University of Niš, Faculty of Law, Niš, Serbia
Niko Josić
; Catholic Church of the Holy Cross, Niš, Serbia
Abstract
Our reality is facing dramatic changes in the moral attitudes of people. In the light of those changes we are trying to consider the issue of ethical aspect of the competent patient’s request to die and the physician’s decision about it. This elaboration is situated within the field of questioning the basic human values. It is emphasized that the human dignity – being the central value – is not determined by external causes and not dependable on the condition of a person’s health or illnesses. Human dignity is something integral, essential, and inalienable. Thus human dignity springs from the overall quality of human life as of a unique human being, spiritual and physical being gifted with reason and freedom, self-responsibility, and the possibility of self-defining – in case we accept that a man is created in the image and likeness of God (1Mos 1,26–27). The historical prism of considering this problem comes in varieties of forms, from the complete justifications of these requests, or their condemnation, till the contemporary disputes in the field of morality and law, with an emphasis on the possibility of “slippery slope” argumentation this decriminalization might lead to.
Our starting point, from the Christian position, is that something like life without the value does not exist. Therefore we are pointing out the Christian approach to human life and dignity which presupposes the thesis saying that man does not give a life and therefore can not take it away, regardless of the hardship he might be experiencing.
Keywords
euthanasia; Christian perspective; human dignity; “slippery slope” argument
Hrčak ID:
72765
URI
Publication date:
8.9.2011.
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