El estatuto del ser humano en estado terminal

Abstract

The aim of this work is the status of the human being in a terminal state. At first glance, no one would deny the status of person to a human being in the fullness of his or her conscious life; therefore, this issue becomes especially acute when it refers to the beginning and end of human life. As happens with the beginning of human life, we can distinguish between an ontological conception that identifies the human being with the human person and another functional that identifies the status of a person not with the fact of being human but with some actual function that the human being performs. The same thing happens at the end of life, where again, depending on the conception of the person, the status of persons or human beings in the terminal state of their life will be recognized (in the ontological conception) or not (in the functional conception), especially in cases of loss of consciousness. Just as in other work we have maintained that “human beings must be respected and treated as a person from the moment of their conception,” meaning the moment of fertilization. In the same way, human beings must be respected and treated as a person until their natural death.