Some reflections regarding the constitutional court judgement no. 123/2021. Constitutionality of direct active euthanasia? Worldviews, conceptions of human person and of “medical act” underlying the National Assembly decrees nos. 109/XIV and 199/XIV

• Autor(a) principal: Brito, Teresa Quintela de
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/catolicalawreview.2022.11751

In Judgment no. 123/2021, the Constitutional Court stated the existence of a right to “medically assisted” death as “the right to die or be put to death (by a third party and with the support of public authority)”, in borderline situations of serious, incurable, and fatal disease, and of mere “anticipation of death” regarding a patient already undergoing a natural (and irreversible) death process. This text discusses the ethical, deontological, legal-constitutional, and criminal-legal possibility of such a right. It analyses the repercussions of the legalisation of direct active euthanasia on medical ethics and deontology, the model of medicine, the meaning of the medical profession, the concept of medical act, the doctor-patient relationship, and the freedom and autonomy of the patient who asks fordeath within the aforementioned framework. Since that Judgement refers to the National Assembly Decree no. 109/XIV, the text criticises the concept of person underlying that same Decree, the National Assembly Decree that followed it (no. 199/XIV) and the Law Projects (presented in the XV Legislature) that intend to legalise euthanasia, as well as the intention to regulate “medically assisted” death as a mere confrontation of consciences and individual rights between patient and doctor.