Tensión entre el derecho del paciente terminal a morir dignamente y los límites a la praxis médica en Colombia.

Abstract

The Colombian legal system has conceived human dignity as a manifestation of the right to life, which aims not only at the preservation of life, but at the full exercise of rights and vital functions that must be safeguarded at all times and moments, a matter At the time, Judgment C-239 of 1997 was considered as a weighty argument in light of the constitutional dynamics, to endorse the euthanic procedure as lawful and legal conduct, however after the issuance of Law 599 of 2000 - Code Criminal-, euthanasia was again prohibited by the legislator. Despite the above, the medical ethics standards that emanate from Law 23 of 1981 prevent as part of the physician's function to ensure the life of the patient in suitable conditions, which includes dignity and preventing unnecessary suffering, which in the case of diseases and incurable, can be mitigated through the euthanic procedure, which generates a tension between the value principle of human dignity, the right to life and health with the positive norms of the legal system, apart from the positions found in the practice of medicine; aspects that generate tensions in the patient-patient relationship and that therefore require an in-depth study from medical law, to formulate tentative theoretical responses to one of the most complex situations, such as disposing of human life