Department of Philosophy I, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
Bioethics. 2024 Oct;38(8):713-721. doi: 10.1111/bioe.13325. Epub 2024 Jun 14.
Almost a year after the enactment of the law regulating euthanasia in Spain, public opinion was shocked to learn that a defendant in criminal proceedings obtained medical assistance in dying following injuries sustained in an exchange of gunfire with the police after having committed a series of severe crimes. Although there are very few cases in the world where prisoners have received euthanasia, the one we will discuss in this article is the only known case where both the public prosecutor's office and the private prosecutors judicially opposed the defendant's euthanasia. This article aims to offer a new perspective on the ethical legitimacy of detainees' access to euthanasia: the ethics of caring solidarity. To do this, we will first place the case in its legal context. Subsequently, we will address the two main arguments proposed in the literature to justify euthanasia in detention: respect for the autonomy of the detainee and the principle of equivalence of care. Finally, after having identified serious shortcomings in both arguments, we will argue that the perspective of caring solidarity offers a better ethical basis for people in detention's access to euthanasia.
在西班牙规范安乐死的法律颁布将近一年后，公众震惊地获悉，一名被告在与警方交火中受伤后，在犯下一系列严重罪行后，通过医疗协助自杀。尽管在世界上很少有囚犯接受安乐死的案例，但我们将在本文中讨论的是唯一一起公设辩护人办公室和私人辩护人在法庭上均反对被告安乐死的案例。本文旨在为被拘留者获得安乐死的伦理合法性提供一个新视角：关怀团结伦理。为此，我们将首先将该案件置于其法律背景下。随后，我们将解决文献中提出的为在拘留中实施安乐死辩护的两个主要论点：尊重被拘留者的自主权和关怀等同原则。最后，在发现这两个论点都存在严重缺陷后，我们将论证关怀团结的视角为被拘留者获得安乐死提供了更好的伦理基础。
