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Understanding the aims of medicine is the key to interpreting the ethics of palliative care. From this perspective, one can understand why clinical situations of therapeutic obstinacy and abandonment of suffering occur. It also allows one to understand the need for intensive treatments to control symptoms that could shorten life, such as palliative sedation. Respect for the right to information of the patient and their relatives can raise complex ethical problems. It requires specific training on the part of professionals. The class also analyses critical aspects of the Spanish euthanasia law and the social response to the suffering of vulnerable people.