Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Euthanasia has been leading the debate about the end of life, lately. The "right to a dignified death" is proposed; however, "dying" does not constitute a right in itself and dignity is an attribute of all human life. For its part, Psychiatry has been concerned during the last century with preparing documents, such as, the Hawaii Declaration (1977) and the Madrid Declaration (1996) to ethically regulate the practice of the profession. Surprisingly, countries like the Netherlands and, recently, Spain approve euthanasia in their legislation, at the risk of falling into the “slippery slope” phenomenon and losing control. As a solution, palliative care seeks the dignified treatment of the person who is about to die.

When we think and talk about the end of human life, we ask ourselves: What would be better: euthanasia or the therapeutic obstinacy? Not one option, not another. We do not want to die prematurely, nor do we want to die intentionally. What we want is to die without suffering and in good condition. What cannot be admitted is that there are people who die without the chemical resources to alleviate their pain, without the social resources to look after themselves well, and without the affective resources to be accompanied with affection.Therefore, palliative care is the only ethical and sanitary option at the end of a person's life, in accordance with due respect for their dignity, and more, in a situation of vulnerability.On the contrary, to support euthanasia and therapeutic obstinacy is to defend, basically, a medicine of desire: two extremes of the same individualistic desire. To this is added, that euthanasia is understood in terms of a "right to die", which must be attended to.

Talking about the proximity of death is questioning, for many a taboo or topic to avoid. However, it is not far from our present reality and invites us to reflect on it. A great American author, who died at the age of eighty-seven, left us with a memorable phrase: "Death is the last journey, the longest and the best." (Tom Wolfe), in the accurate reflection of who starts not to return. Many are the factors that have influenced to assume this reality, from the recurrence of the news, the natural fear of death, the fragility in the face of illness, the seeing of those close to oneself, old age and childhood; own personal and family experience, fear, fear, loneliness and sadness together with a host of emotions that are necessary to assume and control. The handling of mourning and mourning is not far from this reality, as well as the consequent coping with the death of those who are close and even close to their own departure. Bioethics also invites us to reflect on palliative care, respect for human dignity and value, also proposing support aids for human well-being.

The article tries to provoke a reflection on death as a result of the worldwide experience of the pandemic. Death has always been a mysterious subject and has generated various questions, but the superficiality in which we live today prevents, in many cases, from reflecting on the subject, which, however, must be done, since, from the answer we give the meaning of our life depends. In addition, it is convenient to be prepared because we do not know when we are going to die. It is, therefore, in this article, to highlight some aspects -paradoxical many of them- of death, a universal and necessary fact, although often forgotten, in order to live it in a personal way, with dignity and hope, in the specific situation of pandemic that we are going through. It is also about highlighting the value of the elderly and the family or, failing that, friendship, at the time of the last goodbye.

The article tries to illustrate how the debate on the right to euthanasia can be rethought in the post-Covid society. It is claimed that the legalization of euthanasia generates a risk to the life and integrity of the people who are granted the right to die, the patients with a severe chronic disease. The pandemic has highlighted the enormous vulnerability of these patients in the exercise of their right to health protection and the need for more effective legal protection for their lives. Similarly, the health crisis allows us to re-dimension the real demands of the hypothetical recipients of the new Euthanasia’s law, and these have less to do with the right to death than with the right to life and equal access to available medical treatment.

In this article, we refer to the main foundations that the personalism of Karol Wojtyla contributes to bioethical reflection in reference to woman and the feminine. The woman is a person, a unique and valuable someone, with a greater dignity, in whose freedom lies the ability to decide who she wants to be. Woman also reveals herself in action. She has a genius, a unique way of loving and being loved, of responding to the vocation to love for her full realization. Then, love constitutes her only adequate form and foundation of every ethical norm; consequently, she cannot but transmit life in all its forms. Woman displays her feminine genius from the family, from which she radiates her humanity to other areas of society. Wojtyla thus bases the contribution of woman against modern postulates such as contraception, abortion, euthanasia and other attacks on life that the culture of death brings with it. He elevates woman beyond political and social boundaries.

Today, the pandemic caused by COVID-19 has abruptly shown us a reality that no one escapes: the mystery of human nature that is death. Human life cannot be explained without death. And it is that the moment of death is as important as that of birth because it is part of the natural process of life. The truth is that the pandemic brings with it pain and suffering prior to death; and it is of such a lethality that, despite existing risk groups, we are all exposed to contagion.The speed with which the virus spreads and the inability to contain its effects, has caused the death of millions of people around the world, which leads us to look at the places where death is faced on the front line. . But the most important thing is that it leads us to look at the fragility of life from another perspective.Critically ill patients (that is, with severe deterioration in their organic functions due to diseases that can potentially be complicated by compromising life), keep their dignity intact and, being a fragile group in extreme circumstances such as a pandemic, leave evidence of that violate the dignity of people in the field of health care activity, for which we believe it is important to remember from a bio-legal perspective, the vulnerability of critically ill patients.

This work investigates the fundamental contribution of interpersonal relationships in the configuration of personal identity, based on the consideration of the person as an essentially open and relational being, and of the body as a symbolic reality of the human vocation to love. Understanding that personal identity consists of the self-representation of oneself as a singular being and in homogeneity with others, and identifying through continuous changes and decisions as a being called to love, its achievement will require a gradual process that encompasses its entire existence. The identity stages through which it progresses - affiliation, nuptiality, paternity - require the acquisition of certain developmental capacities that provide the experience of welcoming and giving, essential elements of love. In the continuum of interpersonal relationships in which the person will be immersed in their own life journey from the first relationship with the one that gave birth to them, they will be able to develop their own self-awareness and advance in their development through the psychosocial skills that they will acquire to face the needs raised in each maturational stage until achieving the consolidation of their own personal identity in the authentically human experience of love as an existential meaning.

In 2013, the World Health Organization affirmed that one in three women in the world suffers physical and / or sexual violence by their partner, reflecting with this statement the seriousness of family violence in the world. Unfortunately, women subjected to this scourge are twice as prone to experiencing mental illness and abuse in the consumption of alcohol and drugs, unlike those who have not suffered from family violence. Statistics also indicate that 42% of women who have experienced physical and sexual violence by their partners are prone to serious injuries and even death from it. Violence against women denotes a serious global health problem, significantly affects both the mental, physical and spiritual health of women whose dignity is violated and must be fought by focusing on the person in an integral way, as maintained by Personalism. According to the reality expressed, the purpose of this research is to explain from a personal approach the anthropological foundations of the dignity of women, recognizing the intrinsic value that it possesses, the same that is violated in a context of family violence.

Work-family conciliation is a mechanism that has constitutional support in Peru, but it has just been implemented and having importance in the peruvian workplace, during the last years.  Its regulation has been oriented to guarantee equal opportunities between men and women; as well as to achieve an adequate distribution of family and domestic responsibilities.  The incorporation of remote work has put in evidence the difficulty that workers had in conciliate their works with their family life.  In the case of women, the difficulty has been bigger because they have to combine the care of their families with their works and housework too.  So, we must reflect about female identity and female vocation, that must permeate every role that they have to play to achieve their development