Part Two Rights, 3 Dignity and Autonomy

This chapter provides excerpts of the Colombian Constitutional Court’s case law on dignity and autonomy. Like some European legal orders, Colombian constitutionalism is centered on the protection of human dignity, understood as the protection of a minimum level of subsistence (see Chapter 6), as well as broad respect for human autonomy in fundamental choices. It covers the jurisprudence of the Court legalizing possession of a personal dose of drugs as well as euthanasia, protecting the decisional autonomy of children in a school setting, protecting the autonomy and dignity of intersex children, and legalizing abortion in certain circumstances. These topics are noteworthy because they demonstrate the Court’s insistence on protecting human autonomy within a historical context that has often sacrificed the individual for the collective.