Competencia general:

the departure of the spirit/soul from the body, what concerns us here is the place of advance directives in promoting the dignity of human death. Human death can occur in several means. But our focus here is death as a result of critical/terminal illness. The occurrence of death in this situation should follow a steady care of the patient through

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ordinary means of treatment (and possibly extraordinary means), with much care shown to the patient until the last breath of the patient.

Care of terminally ill patients may take place in the home but more commonly occurs in hospitals or more specialized institutions called hospices. Such care demands special qualities on the part of physicians and psychologists, who must deal with their own fear of death before they can adequately comfort the dying. Although physicians commonly disagree, the tenet that most patients should be told that they are dying is now widely accepted. This must, of course, be done with tact and caring. Many persons, even children, know they are dying anyway; helping them to bring it out into the open avoids pretence and encourages the expression of honest feelings. Given safety and security, the informed dying patient can achieve an appropriate death, one marked by dignity and serenity. Concerned therapists or clergy can assist in this achievement simply by allowing the patient to talk about feelings, thoughts, and memories, or by acting as a substitute for family and friends who may grow anxious when the dying patient speaks of death. It is this type of death that enjoys dignity.

Taking this as the criteria for dignity of human death, advance directive will promote this on an ambivalent count. If the ordinary means and perhaps extraordinary means are subscribed to, we can say that the practice of advance directives promotes the dignity of human death.

However, when the withdraw type of advance directives is applied for with the sole decision give in to death at those moment, we can say that advance directives does not promote the dignity of human death. Although the patient who takes to advance directives especially the living will type may have got much psychological consolation over the reality of death, the reality of the unknown cause of events in the future and the comparison with the death that occurs in a process of love and care for the patient shows that such suggestion of death at the living will is not fruitful and productive.

Hence, it does not promote the dignity of human death.

More so, it is worthy to note here that some people may not subscribe to the idea of a slow death with love and care shown to the patient. To this people, they belief that they have right to die added to their right to life. This makes them morally and

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legally right to decide the nature of their death. For this people, that is where the dignity of human death lies.

The Right to Die

Right to die is right of an individual with a terminal injury or disease to refuse extraordinary medical efforts or life-sustaining equipment, such as the use of respirators and intravenous feeding, to continue his or her life. The catchphrase ―right to die‖

represents an aspect of the right to privacy that is legally recognized in many states.⁵³ The dignity of pain (received and caused to others), control (being controlled perpetually by others, dependency (living perpetually by depending on others for everything in life) will make people project their right to death since they are autonomous and free beings. With their freedom, they can decide the cause of their lives until death. Hence, they can determine how to die and when to die since it is their lives.

This right to die thus makes people to apply for advance directives especially the withdrawal of treatment to facilitate their deaths. This right to die is equally present in the related issue of suicide. With the emancipation agenda of liberals can make them to choose advance directives even choosing the withdrawal of treatment type. However, the exercise of the right to life brings to the fore the ethical problem between the right to life and the right of autonomy.

The Right to Life and the Right of Autonomy

While it is crystal clear that the right to life is fundamental as well as the right of autonomy by the virtue of human freedom. However, while everyone is allowed to be autonomous in deciding the course of his/her life without infringing on the right of others, no one is allowed by the natural order to exercises his autonomy immorally.

And so, the right to life has the corresponding duty to protect and preserve it without relegating the basic human freedom. It is the misunderstanding of this right of autonomy that warrants a blind choice of advance directives especially on the withdrawal of treatment type with the view that one is allowed to live freely and even decide his/her death.

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Hence, while the insistence of freedom is recognized in advance directives and where as there is the danger of this freedom to be misinterpreted, except advance directives projects a better understanding of the limit of human freedom in advance directives, it will destroy human beings at the long run. It becomes a bit clear that advance directives is more of a pragmatic medical resort, of which pragmatism has not received wide acclamation when it judges actions especially on the level of expediency.

Nevertheless, the idea of death from the African/Igbo perspective may not guarantee the dignity of human death. This is because Africans/Igbo see death as a continuation of life in the world of the afterlife, where one becomes an ancestor after a fulfilled life in the world. To cause one‘s death by simple will or action is evil in the traditional society. On this note, the suggestion of the withdrawal of treatment type does not promote the dignity of human death. On the contrary, the suggestion of extraordinary means to preserve life in order to have a natural death is widely contestable. This goes to show that although many people are taking to advance directives, the question of its promotion of the dignity of human life from beginning to end is endless.