{"title":"Opinion of physicians and the general population on the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide.","authors":"Justo Aznar","doi":"10.30444/CB.85","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In some countries, particularly Spain, one of the arguments used to justify the legalization of euthanasia is that there is a strong social demand for it. To try to ascertain the truth of this statement, we review different surveys of physicians and the general public, to determine their opinion on whether or not to legalize this practice. We found that the percentage of respondents who approve this practice varies widely from one country to another, with some countries in which approval is close to 80% and others in which it fails to reach even 40%. It has been suggested that this may be because the questions included in the various surveys differ greatly, since not all use the word ″euthanasia″ directly, replacing it with words or phrases of similar meaning. Thus, some respondents may not quite identify them with euthanasia. We conclude that, in the vast majority of countries, there does not seem to be an objective social demand to justify the legalization of euthanasia.</p>","PeriodicalId":42510,"journal":{"name":"Cuadernos de Bioetica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cuadernos de Bioetica","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.30444/CB.85","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
In some countries, particularly Spain, one of the arguments used to justify the legalization of euthanasia is that there is a strong social demand for it. To try to ascertain the truth of this statement, we review different surveys of physicians and the general public, to determine their opinion on whether or not to legalize this practice. We found that the percentage of respondents who approve this practice varies widely from one country to another, with some countries in which approval is close to 80% and others in which it fails to reach even 40%. It has been suggested that this may be because the questions included in the various surveys differ greatly, since not all use the word ″euthanasia″ directly, replacing it with words or phrases of similar meaning. Thus, some respondents may not quite identify them with euthanasia. We conclude that, in the vast majority of countries, there does not seem to be an objective social demand to justify the legalization of euthanasia.
期刊介绍:
La revista Cuadernos de Bioética, órgano oficial de la Asociación Española de Bioética y Ética Médica, publica cuatrimestralmente artículos y recensiones bibliográficas sobre todas las áreas de la bioética: fundamentación, ética de la investigación, bioética clínica, biojurídica, etc. Estos proceden de los aceptados en la revisión tutelada por los editores de la revista como de otros que por encargo el comité editorial solicite a sus autores. La edicion de la revista se financia con las aportaciones de los socios de AEBI.