Medycyna ludzkich pragnień z perspektywy bioetycznej

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to analyse validity of the idea of medicine as a human activity aiming at fulfilling man’s desires, wishes and fantasies. A question is posted as a starting point, if such an approach is to be diagnosed at all. A positive answer is enhanced with a thesis that the title perception of medicine does exist, but it has become possible only in the last decades of the 20th century. The next steps of the analysis proceed as follows: to diagnose what constitutes a groundwork for such attitudes and expectations (1); to point out particular manifestations of this kind of approach towards medicine and to discuss a selection of their consequences (2), for to finally draw bioethical conclusions from the political event, namely passing the bill 1763 (2010) by the Council of Europe. The final conclusion of the analysis has been phrased: medicine is not a fairy that satisfies wishes and fulfills desires – its goal is reliable care for life and health of all patients carried out on the basis of fundamental bioethical norms. The uncompromising defense of dignity of every human being, their freedom (not willfulness), equality of all and solidarity, sooner or later has to come into conflict with the idea of medicine of desires that violates – to some extend – every bioethical principle.