SOME ETHICAL CONCERNS ABOUT END OF LIFE: A PARADIGM SHIFT FROM ARS MORIENDI TO MEDICALIZED DEATH

Abstract

Medicine carries several goals, including preventing and curing diseases, relieving pain and suffering, and avoiding premature death to promote and maintain the person’s health from birth to death. Through medical, pharmaceutical, and technological developments in the last century, medicine has started to play a bigger role in end-of-life matters, which has led to a longer life. Nevertheless, it is questionable whether a longer life produces a better life. Prior to the relevant advances, in earlier centuries, death was considered a natural and inevitable end and mostly managed through religious approaches, such as the Ars moriendi. However, the medical and technological breakthroughs have prompted a delusive perception as if medicine is potent to achieve whatever wished. Aggressive treatment or demand for it largely results from that interpretation of medical power. In this context, the article concisely examines that situation and underscores its impact on the matters of where, how, and when to die and suggests home-based palliative care, which also covers social, emotional, and spiritual support, to mitigate the pertinent ethical problems.