Legal and ethical issues that accompany the permanent vegetative state reveal the complexity of the problem. In addition to the legal principles of well-regulated issues of substitute consent, decision-making on medical interventions and respect for pre-expressed will, the greatest contradiction can be found between the principle of the inviolability of life and the decision of the third to conclude it.
In a society like ours where helping someone to die is incriminated and alleged as a criminal offense, the problem of a person who finds himself in a hopeless situation, i.e. in permanent vegetative state, poses the question as to whether the time to seriously discuss the legalization of aid to the defenseless death has finally come. As we perceive it today, the situation might cause an increasingly »slippery terrain« where, with further unconvincing arguments, assistance in ending life will begin to be allowed even in areas where it is not allowed. Without proper legislation and clear ethical guidelines of medical ethics commissions, also for the cases of patients with a permanent vegetative state, individuals will remain left to the inconsistency and ethics of those who surround them at such a state. The risk of blurring the boundaries between permitted and unauthorized actions, which I draw attention to throughout the master's thesis, is not that hard to happen.
In the master thesis, I present the current legal system and apply it to the dilemmas that occur in the case of a patient with a persistent vegetative state. In my work, I show the various aspects on open questions in this field, and thus the dimension of the issues discussed.
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