The Brazilian Federal Council of Medicine approved the Resolution n. 1805/2006, regulating the practice of orthothanasia, which authorizes the doctor to limit or discontinue medical resources in case of serious illness with no possibility of cure, offering the patient a palliative care, provided his or his legal representative consent. This article analyzes the discourse of those involved in the civil action against that Resolution, proposed by the Federal Prosecutors' Office on the understanding that such practice violates the criminal law. The categories of suffering and dignity (in living and in dying) were related with the evidence of incurability and irreversibility in the speeches of both supporters and opponents of the regulation. The analysis of their speeches indicates the formulation of ideals of person, life and death, as well as the connections between morality, medicine and law.
Euthanasia; Right to die; Bioethics; Legal process; Life