This article examines the regulation on terminal patients' rights in Argentina at two points in time: the first attempts to regulate end-of-life rights (1996), and the "death with dignity" law passed by the National Congress (2011)(2012). Comparative analysis allows us to observe variations among the individuals and situations included in the legislation, as well as in the conceptualization of autonomy and the interventions that is considered lawful refuse. The political context and the differential way that "death with dignity" entered the legislative agenda in each period determined the public's construction of the problem and thus the extent and result of the debates.Keywords: death with dignity; medicalization; euthanasia; bioethics; Argentina.Juan Pedro Alonso, Agustina Villarejo, Eugenia Brage 2 História, Ciências, Saúde -Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro 2 História, Ciências, Saúde -Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro T his article reviews the regulation of terminal patients' rights in Argentina, examining the conditions under which the issue emerged in legislative arena, and the way that medical management of end-of-life care (an expression which covers medical practices related to processes of dying) was constructed as a topic for public discussion at different periods.Debates and references to "death with dignity" and a "good death," which have been around for a long time (Ariès, 2000;Kellehear, 2007), gained new significance and relevance with the medicalization and technification of the end of life in the West, a process influenced by the professionalization of the medical field, as well as by cultural, demographic and epidemiological changes (Illich, 1978; Ariès, 2000; Walter, 1997;Seale, 2000). Technical innovations such as pulmonary ventilation, cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques and artificial nutrition, which led in the 1950s and 1960s to the possibility of offering intensive therapy, substantially altered end-of-life management in medical settings (Lock, 2002; Kind, 2009). The ability to keep vital organs functioning by technical means, which resulted in liminal states between life and death (Kaufman, 2000), gave a new status to medical decisionmaking in end-of-life care, and opened debates about the potential of these technologies and the limits to their use.Within the framework of the emergence of bioethics as a discipline (Rothman, 1991;Irrazábal, 2015) and critiques of the medicalization of death and dying, such as the hospice movement (Clark, Seymour, 1999;Castra, 2003; Menezes, 2004; Floriani, Schraam, 2010), end-of-life care soon came to be seen as a "public problem." Decisions about when to prolong the life of a patient by artificial means and the criteria for withholding or withdrawing lifesupport measures had not been scrutinized until the mid-1970s, but they began to be discussed by different actors when doctors' authority to make these decisions came into question as a result of some controversial cases (Rothman, 1991). The legal ruling that granted Karen Quinlan's parents' request t...
El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la cobertura periodística de los debates sobre “muerte digna” en la prensa escrita Argentina en el período 2011-2015, en ocasión de la discusión y aprobación de la llamada ley de “muerte digna” en el país. Se realizó un relevamiento de noticias en La Nación, Clarín y Página/12 y se conformó un corpus de 373 artículos periodísticos que fueron analizados a partir de un análisis cuantitativo y de análisis temático. En este artículo mostramos cómo la circulación de ideas en torno a la muerte digna se construye a partir de la preeminencia de tópicos legales y familiares, y el poco espacio de abordajes médicos y/o científicos; la centralidad de los estados vegetativos y de los daños neurológicos como condición de salud asociada a estas discusiones, motivada en parte por los casos que pusieron la temática en el ámbito público; el foco de la cobertura en casos emblemáticos y dramas particulares; y, por último, la casi nula referencia a temáticas como la eutanasia o el suicidio asistido en los debates, dominados por la limitación del esfuerzo terapéutico.
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