The Media Impact on the Public Acceptability of Euthanasia

Authors

  • Florina POSTICA Graduate Student, Faculty of Law and Public Administration, Stefan cel Mare University from Suceava, Romania
  • Antonio SANDU Professor PhD, Faculty of Law and Public Administration, Stefan cel Mare University from Suceava, Romania

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18662/eejmhb/01

Keywords:

Euthanasia, Ethical Acceptance, Ethical Decision, Media Influence.

Abstract

The article presents the results of a micro-research among students from a non-medical specialty at a university in the N.E. area of Romania, which aims at analysing the changes in the opinions regarding the moral, social and juridical acceptability of euthanasia according to the discursive context in which the opinions are expressed. The microtest was developed based on the repeated application of a questionnaire on euthanasia, before and after watching "Me before you". The film presents the issue of euthanasia from the point of view of a youngster who is accustomed to practicing extreme sports, and suffers from tetraparalysis after an accident, and a young woman who is committed to taking care of the young man and who falls in love with it. The film has an emotional impact considered by researchers to be particularly high. The hypothesis of the research is that a discursive context with a special emotional load changes the social and ethical acceptability threshold of a social fact - the voluntary request of the interruption of the course of life - considered unacceptable by that interpretative community. The micro-research sought to measure the changes in public perceptions regarding the moral acceptability of euthanasia in terms of exposure of the public to euthanasia-friendly media. Specifically, a group of students questioned the ethical acceptability of euthanasia before and after exposure to media euthanasia, in particular the movie Me Before You, a film by Thea Sharrock after the novel with the same title of author Jojo Moyes.

How to cite: Postica, F., & Sandu, A. (2017). The Media Impact on the Public Acceptability of Euthanasia. Eastern-European Journal of Medical Humanities and Bioethics, 1(1), 7-35. https://doi.org/10.18662/eejmhb/01

Author Biographies

Florina POSTICA, Graduate Student, Faculty of Law and Public Administration, Stefan cel Mare University from Suceava, Romania

Graduate Student, Faculty of Law and Public Administration, Stefan cel Mare University from Suceava, Romania

Antonio SANDU, Professor PhD, Faculty of Law and Public Administration, Stefan cel Mare University from Suceava, Romania

Professor PhD, Faculty of Law and Public Administration, Stefan cel Mare University from Suceava, Romania

References

Beauchamp, T., & Davidson, A. (1979). The Definition of Euthanasia. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 4, 294-312.

Brock, D. (1993). Voluntary Active Euthanasia. Hastings Center Report, 22(2), 10-22.

Brus, V. (2010). Tangente si controverse privind dreptul la viata si eutanasia. Revista de Studii si Cercetari Juridice, 3-4, pp. 162. Editura Pontos, Chisinau

Burkhardt, S., La Harpe, R., Harding, T-W., Sobel, J. (2006). Euthanasia and assisted suicide: Comparison of legal aspects in Switzerland and other countries. Medicine science and the law, 46(4), 287-294. https://doi.org/10.1258/rsmmsl.46.4.287

Conventia Europeana a Drepturilor Omului. Available online at: http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_RON.pdf

DEX (2017) https://dexonline.ro/definitie/eutanasie

Fischer, S., Huber, C.A., Imhof, L., Imhof, R., Mahrer Furter, M., Ziegler, S.J., Bosshard, G. (2008). Suicide assisted by two Swiss right-to-die organisations. Journal of medical ethics, 34(11), 810-814. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2007.023887

Flandorfer, A.A. (2016). Critica fundamentelor etico filosofice ale national socialismului. Bucharest: Eikon Publishing.

Pusca, F. (2005). Eutanasia-un concept controversat. Analele Universitatii din Bucuresti, 4, p. 418. Bucuresti: Editura C.H. Beck.

Rotari, O. (2011). Euthanasia By the prism of the life-right. Revista Studii Juridice Universitare, 1-2, pp. 219. Editura Pontos, Chisinau

Rotaru, C. (2005). Consideratii privind euthanasia. Analele universitatii din Bucuresti, LIV, pp.71.

Schmidt, K.W. (2017). Assisted suicide in the movies - what is (not) shown? BUNDESGESUNDHEITSBLATT-GESUNDHEITSFORSCHUNG-GESUNDHEITSSCHUTZ, 60(1), 99-107. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00103-016-2474-9

Singer, P. (1994). Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics. Melbourne: Text Publishing.

Streba, I., Damian, S., & Ioan, B. (2012). Medical and ethical dilemma in brain death. The Medical-Surgical Journal, 116(3), 731-8.

Vidaicu, M. (2006). Eutanasia si suicidul asistat. Revista Nationala de Drept, 10, 66. Editura Publicatie Stiintico-practica.

Young, R. (2017). Voluntary Euthanasia. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University: Metaphysics Research Lab. Available online at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/euthanasia-voluntary/.

Downloads

Published

2017-12-21

How to Cite

POSTICA, F., & SANDU, A. (2017). The Media Impact on the Public Acceptability of Euthanasia. Eastern-European Journal of Medical Humanities and Bioethics, 1(1), 7-35. https://doi.org/10.18662/eejmhb/01

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2017): Eastern-European Journal of Medical Humanities and Bioethics

Section

Bioethics

License

Copyright (c) 2017 Florina POSTICA, Antonio SANDU

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work, with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the journal.
  • Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as an earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

EEJMHB Journal has an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND

CC_BY_NC_ND