Abstract
At the present moment, it is usually not long before a problem is framed in terms of rights-based arguments. Although it is hard to maintain that human rights is an unequivocal, universal tool, rights talk today is the trumping vocabulary of political struggle. In the first part of this Article, I will present three features that may help comprehend the variety and divergencies in human rights culture: the juxtaposition between the individual and the person at the heart of present-day constitutions; the dichotomy of privacy and dignity; the combination of civil and political rights with social and economic rights. In general terms, all these elements have come to affect the patients’ awareness, channel their expectations and, above all, contribute in various ways to change their social position and how society might visualise them.
In the second part of the article, I will then focus on three historical passages – occurred in legal doctrine, medicine, and judicial decision-making – which played a crucial part in transforming how patients are seen in medical law. First, I will refer to the cultural shift from medical paternalism, when doctor-patient relationship was based on a one-way trust, to the idea of patients’ autonomy. Second, I will turn to when the first organ transplants were performed, impacting on the notion of death and on the patients’ condition. Third, I will illustrate how the doctrine of informed consent was elaborated, especially before U.S. courts.
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Barbisan, B. (2020). Human Rights and Patient’s Rights. In: Emmerich, N., Mallia, P., Gordijn, B., Pistoia, F. (eds) Contemporary European Perspectives on the Ethics of End of Life Care. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 136. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40033-0_2
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