The paper proposes moral and ethical guidelines for medical treatment at the edge of viability. The proposed principles are defended on the grounds of a general conceptual framework presented by elucidating the notions of viability, the edge of viability, person, sanctity of human life, dignity, and the slope of dignity protection, as well as the distinction between ethics and morality.

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Dying with dignity – advance directives To the Editor: We may be grateful to Dr Larsen for drawing our attention to the recent launch of Dignity SA.1 Dignity SA aims to support the provision of palliative care plus an option of legalised assisted dying; their website is http://dignitysa.com/. In this aim, they reflect the UK organisation: Dignity in Dying, with its years of experience and their...

Ever since the adoption of European Pillar Social Rights, EU seems committed to explore and expand its social dimension deliver a decent standard living society. This new endeavour gives rise number questions, not least regarding how notion that is compatible with life in dignity ought be interpreted what obligations Member States are this quest. The aim contribution precisely shed some light o...

The principle of respect for human dignity plays a crucial role in the emerging global norms relating to bioethics, in particular in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. This instrument, which is a legal, not merely an ethical document, can be regarded as an extension of international human rights law into the field of biomedicine. Although the Declaration does not ex...

BACKGROUND Maintaining dignity, the quality of being worthy of esteem or respect, is considered as a goal of palliative care. The aim of this study was to analyse the construct of personal dignity and to assess the content validity of the Patient Dignity Inventory (PDI) in people with an advance directive in the Netherlands. METHODS Data were collected within the framework of an advance direc...

This paper argues that some of the misunderstandings surrounding the meaning and function of the concept of human dignity in bioethics arise from a lack of distinction between two different roles that this notion plays: one as an overarching policy principle, and the other as a moral standard of patient care. While the former is a very general concept which fulfils a foundational and a guiding ...

since welfare, as a philosophical issue, has considered as an indication of man’s highest intellectual status and dignity, it always attracted the philosopher’s attention and they continuously asked weather: -did all philosophers agree about the same meaning of welfare? -did they agree about its determination and dimensions? -can welfare from the philosophical meaning contain religious or ethic...