title: [Dignity of human life: euthanasia and suicide].
abstract: Euthanasia is commonly considered as a form of suicide. The study aims to explore if such a presumption could be justified. Philosophical analysis of concepts of "human being", "human person", "biological life" and "life of human person", undertaken in this article, proved that the effective cause of suicide is obviously different from such a cause of euthanasia. Suicide aims to destruct life of a human person which is considered deprived of its dignity. Euthanasia's effective cause is to protect the dignity of such a life which is threatened by low quality of biological life caused both by the disease as well as by the applied treatment even if palliative only. On the basis of these considerations the main conclusion is drawn: suicide and euthanasia having different moral (material) subjects should be also ethically evaluated in a different way.
authors.affiliation: Zakład Filozofii i Etyki Slaskiej Akademii Medycznej. zakfilet@slam.katowice.pl
authors.forename: Lesław
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Niebrój
mesh_terms: D026690:Ethics, Clinical; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005065:Euthanasia / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D017236:Suicide, Assisted / Q000941:ethics*