Die with dignity?

Over the last fifty years there were a lot of debates about legalizing the voluntary euthanasia. If a physician-assisted suicide can either be considered as rescuing a person from senseless suffering or it has to be considered as a murder? In two of these cases the human dignity is supposed to be violated. Killing a person, even according to her decision violates the basic human rights and dignity. To the contrary, by not executing the person's wish, the term of death with dignity cannot be used.

This example shows how differently the term of human dignity can be interpreted. If you look up in several dictionaries for the word dignity, you will find a number of several definitions, which will only prove the difficulty of distinguishing the term.

The first article of the Declaration of Human Rights postulates that „all human beings are born equal in dignity and rights“. The question is, can we rely on such an uncertain term, like dignity, by using it in the documents of international importance?

These questions were raised in the introductory lecture for the Human Rights and Science group given by Udo Schuklenk, PhD in Bioethics. Despite the difficulty of discussing such ethical questions, listeners were interested and inspired by the beautiful style in which the lecture was given. So unlike other speakers Mr. Schuklenk did not leave the participants alone, but joined them for further discussions in the afternoon.