Ethical, Religious and Legal Arguments in the Current Debate over Euthanasia in Spain

• Authors: Juan Siurana , Isabel Tamarit , Lidia de Tienda
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In the last ten years, there have been several cases in Spain (Ramón Sampedro, Leganés, Jorge León that have led to an intense social debate on euthanasia. The recent case of Inmaculada Echevarría, a woman suffering from a serious disease that kept her immobilized in bed, has revived the debate on euthanasia in Spain. On 18 October 2006 she held a press conference and publicly asked to be disconnected from the ventilator that kept her alive. After a long ethical, religious, legal, and social debate, the patient was disconnected on 14 March 2007 after being adequately sedated. As a consequence, the patient died. In our paper we defend the need for a radical and intercultural democracy and present the main ethical, religious and legal arguments on euthanasia that are being posed in Spain and in Europe as a debate that should help to build a radical and intercultural democracy at a European level.

Keywords

EN

radical democracy; euthanasia; ethical arguments; religious arguments; legal arguments; Spain; Europe

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Human Affairs
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 52-66

Dates

published

2008-06-01

online

2008-06-19

Contributors

author

Juan Siurana

• Department of Philosophy of Law, Morals and Politics Faculty of Philosophy and Education Sciences, University of Valencia, Avda. Blasco Ibá ez, 30 E-46010 Valencia Spain

author

Isabel Tamarit

• Department of Philosophy of Law, Morals and Politics Faculty of Philosophy and Education Sciences, University of Valencia, Avda. Blasco Ibá ez, 30 E-46010 Valencia Spain

author

Lidia de Tienda

• Department of Philosophy of Law, Morals and Politics Faculty of Philosophy and Education Sciences, University of Valencia, Avda. Blasco Ibá ez, 30 E-46010 Valencia Spain

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10023-008-0005-5