Patients’ Rights at the End of Life in Chilean Juridical System. Legal and Jurisprudential Analysis from Biolaw’s Perspective

Abstract

In this chapter, we will show that the legislative framework to protect patients’ rights in Chile is inherently reductionist and points to a limited conception of autonomy, which dwindles patients’ abilities of self-determination. Given such legal context, biolaw can play a key role in designing and establishing effective biojuridical models to solve conflicts between different moral values and visions, arisen in jurisdictional and para-jurisdictional bodies, especially when the laws are inconsistent or ambiguous. We will conclude that Chilean legal frameworks are quite unable to support the rapid evolution of new healthcare quandaries and define a legal way to regulate healthcare practices at the end of life, as well as to delimit normative impact of them in our society, within so sensitive axiological contexts such as individual autonomy and the right to self-determine the vital project.