The current impasse in the old debate about the morality of euthanasia is mainly due to the fact that the actual source of conflict has not been properly identified—or so I shall argue. I will first analyse the two different issues involved in the debate, which are sometimes confusingly mixed up, namely: (a) what is euthanasia?, and (b) why is euthanasia morally problematic? Considering documents by physicians, philosophers and the Roman Catholic Church, I will show that (a) ‘euthanasia’ is defined (...) by the intention to bring about a patient’s death, and (b) the distinction between what is intentional and what is not does not represent the morally problematic reason against euthanasia. Therefore, although the debate on euthanasia so far has mainly focussed on the distinctions ‘active /passive’ and ‘intentional /unintentional,’ I argue that neither constitutes the genuine source of the controversies. I will clarify what the source of controversies is, and outline the minimal requirement for an argument against euthanasia. (shrink)

In this short paper I will discuss the ambiguous and, even, controversial term ‘right to die’ in the context of the euthanasia debate and, in particular, in the case of passive euthanasia. First I will present the major objections towards the moral legitimacy of a right to die, most of which I also endorse myself; then I will investigate whether the right to die could acquire adequate moral justification in the case of passive euthanasia. In the light of the Kantian (...) tradition I will argue that since rights are understood as based upon duties, the right to die should also presuppose a corresponding duty, which to me could be either an imperfect, solidarity-related duty, or an autonomy-related one, at least as far as the unwanted prolongation of life is concerned. I will conclude with the view that the right to die could actually be considered a legitimate one in the case of passive euthanasia, when the application of life-supporting techniques is against the wishes and the best interests of the patient. (shrink)

As the single most important experience in the lives of all people, the process and event of death must be handled carefully by the medical community. Twentieth-century advances in life-sustaining technology impose new areas of concern on those who are responsible for dying persons. Physicians and surrogates alike must be ready and willing to decide not to intervene in the dying process, indeed to hasten it, when they see the autonomy and dignity of patients threatened. In addition, the very ways (...) we talk about death and dying need to come under scrutiny, and it is likely that our technical advances should be parallelled by equally arduous advances in the semantic and rhetorical approaches we take to death. (shrink)

The dilemma of whether to allow relatives to see or even touch their loved one while she undergoes cardiopulmonary resuscitation has been discussed for roughly four decades. However, Family Presence During Adult Resuscitation is still not widely implemented. In this paper, I espouse relational autonomy to make a case for a clinical approach of family-centered care and FPDR. In recent years, family-centered care has gained increasing support. I argue that relational autonomy provides a conceptual framework for both FCC and FPDR. (...) In turn, FCC provides a plausible clinical approach to justify FPDR, while the empirical evidence that supports FPDR provides a useful example to justify FCC. (shrink)