Bioethical Reflections on the Border between Life and Death

The present volume provides a bioethical and legal-philosophical inquiry into three of the most ethically controversial and politically sensitive domains of contemporary biolaw: surrogacy, end-of-life decisions, and medical triage. The book's approach transcends mere description or comparison, delving into the ethical and philosophical dimensions required to adopt a normative framework for evaluating the management of human life at its biological thresholds: birth and death. Within the central chapters, the text follows a consistent thread: through a legal-philosophical perspective, it examines whether the choices of giving life through surrogacy, ending life, and allocating medical resources in contexts of scarcity can be considered ethically admissible while investigating whether normative structures exist that are capable of guiding human action and upholding autonomy, equality, justice, and human dignity. Written in clear and accessible language, this book provides conceptual clarity and critical reflection for scholars and practitioners in bioethics, biolaw, philosophy of law, and health policy.

Shows northern European liberalist theories and southern conservative end-of-life theories Offers a different approach to triage that focuses on the how rather than the what Deals with ethical admissibility of surrogacy

Autorentext

Alessandro Ferrara, PhD, is a scholar in Philosophy of Law at Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, Italy. His research addresses bioethics and biolaw, with work on surrogacy, end-of-life decisions, and medical triage, as well as the ethical challenges posed by scientific progress, emerging biotechnologies, and new digital technologies.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: A Bioethical Analysis of the Surrogability of the Act of Procreation.- Chapter 3: Between euthanasia and assisted suicide: Is there an ethics of the 'good' death?.- Chapter 4: The Ethical triage dilemma.