A eutanásia e o direito brasileiro: o tensionamento entre o direito à vida e a dignidade humana

Abstract

The present work seeks to analyze euthanasia and its prohibition in the Brazilian legal system in order to understand to what extent this prohibition promotes the tension between the right to life and the principle of the dignity of the human being provided constitutionally. For this, there is an extensive study of the two norms regarding the concept and the constitutional prediction. The construction of the sacredness of the right to life and its characterization as a sovereign and absolute right is established and, on the other hand, there is the elucidation of the dignity of the human person as an intrinsic value to the human being. On the latter, it was found its natural connection with the life of any human being, and its two main elements, the autonomy and reason of the individual. As to euthanasia, the concept of this and its limit in the work is explained as it is the procedures performed only in terminal patients. From the delimitation, we study the characterization of this medical procedure and how it is directly linked to the right to die worthily, indicating the importance of being legally established. It was also important for this study to seek the perspective of bioethics on the subject and to understand its principles in order to analyze them in relation to euthanasia and to understand whether it was in accordance with or was in consonance with its principled basis. For this, we also sought the position of the Federal Council of Medicine and the adequacy of its Resolutions closer to the theme based on bioethics. The Belgian law of euthanasia was analyzed as comparative law, aiming to understand how it solved the indicated problem. Finally, by establishing the concepts presented and studying the phenomena mentioned, through the Heideggerian phenomenological methodology, it was possible to understand this tensioning that, in fact, is promoted by the prohibition of euthanasia. Moreover, using the studies of R. Dworkin as a theoretical framework, it was possible to perceive autonomy, as a link between life and human dignity, and that its relevance responds to this conflict between a fundamental right and principle.