Sobre las voluntades anticipadas: aspectos bioéticos, jurídicos y sociales

Abstract

From an interdisciplinary perspective, the article analyzes the bioethical, legal and social aspects of advance directives, tools that grant autonomy in health care with legal recognition. The authors systematize the legal framework of advance directives while characterizing their features and possible contents and highlighting the practical issues. As a complement to that analysis, the article emphasizes the importance of disclosing the nature of advance directives and addresses an asymmetric situation: legal recognition for these documents does not contribute to a social debate about the autonomy in health care, despite it being particularly needed. Summarizing, this article deals with one of the hot topics in bioethics: the right to make anticipated autonomous and informed decisions about the end of life in the health care context.