Resumen de Biorights at the end of life: achievements and open questions in the Italian context
The theme of rights at the end of life has received increasing attention in Italian bioethical, biojuridical and biopolitical reflection since the last decades of the last century, when the model of a medicine, which, while firmly pursuing the objective of restoring health, does not take the burden of relieving from suffering, guaranteeing care that respects their wishes, as well as their needs, those who cannot be cured, but whose survival can be prolonged and whose dying process can be modulated, became the object of increasingly widespread critical consideration. Taking that reflection into consideration, the chapter highlights the important outcome represented by the deontological and juridical, as well as ethical, recognition of the right of subjects who cannot recover, not only to receive all treatments capable of alleviating psycho-physical suffering, but also the right to refuse life-saving treatments that they consider unsustainable. On the other hand, the chapter also highlights how the persistent absence in Italy of a legislative framework for assisted suicide and euthanasia compromises the right to a dignified death of those for whom active assistance in dying constitutes the only way out of the captivity of survival in conditions no longer tolerable for them.
