Euthanasia and moral dilemmas

Abstract

The permissibility of the practice of voluntarily ending the life of a seriously ill person, in order to deprive him of further pain and suffering, is the subject of numerous and heated debates. The attitudes on this complex issue, to put it mildly, are not unanimous. While on one hand, the supporters of euthanasia affirmatively speak about the act in question and advocate for its legalization, its opponents, presenting it as a negation of basic human rights and the right to life, tend to render meaningless any positive effect it could bring. In the shadow of the relationship between the right to life and the right to decide on death, there is the controversy about the justification of euthanasia from the legal standpoint, as well as the moral segment of this act, which must not be neglected. In this regard, the question arises whether it is moral to decide on the end of one's own life, having in mind the fact that no one participated in making the decision to start it. Another important issue is the influence of the circumstances of a specific case, including the type of disease, and the intensity of pain and suffering to which the person is exposed, on the moral assessment of making the decision to end a life or executing this decision. The main task of the theoretical treatment is to get acquainted with the basic features of the act of euthanasia, its perception through the prism of moral norms, both from the point of view of the person who decides to end his own life and from the point of view of the doctor who implements the decision. The choice of the subject of this theoretical treatment is motivated, above all, by its practical significance, as well as by the need for constant moral re-examination of one's own actions, especially in the context of the serious crisis of the value system that characterizes the modern era.