Terminalidade da vida e dignidade humana

Abstract

Life and death are two components of a same formula. However, juridically and paradoxically only life is protected. Social, philosophical and juridical preoccupations do not reflect the same preoccupation about the right to die with dignity, when it comes to protect the right to life, specially about stablishing what would be a dignified life, in the molds exposed by the programmatic rules in the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil. Human beings are the only living beings that can comprehend and question their existence. However, this distinct category of beings, even with this condition, still can not comprehend and accept in a calm way the only certainty of life: death. Moreover, it is necessary to understand that life and death are two complementary processes, because without the notion of life we would not have the notion of death. Life is a legally protected right, for if it was not, it would not make any sense the guarantee of any rights. The assurance of the right to life involves many interpretations, and in the present work we emphasize the need of preserving human dignity through life. Human dignity is a present principle in the Brazilian Federaral Constitution, that puts it as one of the fundaments of the Federative Republic of Brazil in its first article. Nevertheless, it is not observed in any of the listed rights/principles the guarantee of a dignified death. If life and death are components of a same formula, we question why the legal system guarantees the right to life, but does not do it in relation to death. Therefore, the present thesis aims to discuss about the right to a dignified death, attempting to demonstrate that death, as a natural result of life, must also be a process embraced by dignity. The study aims to discuss the terminally of life, specially to demonstrate that brazilian legal thought must evolve to raise a legislation that enables the abbreviation of a patient’s life who is incurably ill, as other countries already did, such as Belgium and Holland. We enhance that this research will be developed in a transdisciplinary way, searching to emphasize the social, juridical, ethical, moral, philosophical and religious importance of the present theme. Moreover, this research will also seek to correlate the theme to civil and penal provisions that criminalizes the practices of abbreviation of life and subject physicians to criminal and civil sanctions arising from such acts. Although we analyse foreign laws about the theme, it is importante to enhance that the research will be mainly developed under the brazilian laws perspective.