The necessity and benefits of legalizing medical assistance in dying in Mexico

Abstract

Based on historical, contextual, and ethical-philosophical grounds, this paper analyzes the characteristics and bioethical implications of the concept of medical assistance in dying, which includes euthanasia and the misnamed physician-assisted suicide. The medical assistance in dying has already been legalized in several countries with different legal systems (including nations with a predominantly Catholic tradition). Therefore, medical assistance in dying has the potential to be legalized globally, given its legal and ethical soundness, as a medical procedure to which any person is voluntarily entitled, if they comply with certain requirements established by law. In particular, the paper explains why the act of requesting assistance to die voluntarily because of a terminal illness or irreversible and intolerable physical condition should not be considered equivalent to suicide. The only difference between the two forms of medical assistance in dying that have been defined in different countries is who provides or administers the lethal medication: medical personnel or the patient themselves. The second part of the paper argues for the necessity and social benefits of legalizing medical assistance in dying in Mexico and in any other country, given that this medical practice is compatible with public health services and with the ethics of medical practice, whose purpose is to alleviate pain and suffering in order to avoid therapeutic obstinacy and the prolongation of intolerable agony in cases in which there is no cure or acceptable state for the person being treated. Thus, medical assistance in dying emerges as a global citizen's right, as a basic right to make a free decision to die in the best possible conditions and, to this end, to receive the necessary medical assistance, within the public health system.