The advance directive focused on degenerative and catastrophic diseases established in the testated succession as a precedent in the civil regulations of Ecuador

Abstract

Every authority is obligated to provide security and protection, both socially and legally, for each member of the State, based on the constitution of a social state of rights and justice. Part of this protection entails the representation of the utmost support towards those individuals considered priority groups, such as individuals with terminal, degenerative, or catastrophic diseases that violate human dignity. In these cases, the State must work with greater determination to ensure the fundamental rights that safeguard an adequate quality of life for individuals to thrive in society. Based on the above, this paper highlights the importance of providing priority attention to people immersed in this situation, allowing them to exercise a transcendental legal figure —the advance statement— which, although it is not legally recognized, has an internal representation that permits establishing a living will; it can converge with the right to a death with dignity, as a consequence of a dignified life as a constitutional right granted by the Ecuadorian State.