Human Dignity and the End of Life

Abstract

The end of life is a particularly sensitive period in a human life and requires true solidarity and compassion. Generally speaking, people want to die peacefully and in a dignified way, without pain and suffering, for which purpose modern medicine has developed palliative medicine as specialized medical care for the sick and dying. Palliative care is active and comprehensive (physical, psychological, spiritual) care which aims to raise the quality of life, as well as to alleviate pain and the symptoms of illness. Palliative care is medical care for every person regardless of age, one’s specific situation and phase of illness, whether the illness be curable, chronic, or life–threatening. Euthanasia contradicts everything that physicians do, which is to treat and care for the sick and suffering, and therefore runs contrary to the medical profession. Physicians are needed to treat and provide care for the sick, which is the minimum ethical standard of the medical profession. The act of euthanasia is incompatible with the physician’s role as we have understood it from time immemorial. To intentionally take a person’s life is an intrinsically wrongful act. Human life is more valuable than its instrumental meaning or individual merit in society: it is the highest value, and every human being is equal in this regard. Life as the fundamental good must be experienced, for to merely talk about it does not need to mean much: a book or a text cannot provide the experience of something as being good, nor of what it means to be good.