Euthanasia: Domestic and Foreign Experience of Legal Regulation

Abstract

The article discusses various approaches to the premature discontinuing of the life of a terminally ill patient both at the state and international level. The purpose of this study is to revise the previously established approach to the use of euthanasia in the Russian Federation. A different view of the use of euthanasia is necessary, among other things, because in some cases, only the premature termination of a person's life may be the only way to end his suffering from a vain struggle with an incurable disease. The difficulties associated with the use of the euthanasia procedure over a long time period are a topic of discussion for many scientists. The relevance of this topic is emphasized by the rapidly changing views on the possibility of using euthanasia from an ethical point of view. More and more international organizations are expressing their own views on euthanasia and assisted suicide. As for the legal order of individual states, there is a tendency to use one of three approaches to ending the suffering of a patient by causing death: the first approach is characterized by a prohibition on the use of euthanasia under the threat of criminal punishment and qualifying such an act as murder in the absence of a special corpus delicti; in the second approach, euthanasia is also a criminal offense, however, the criminal law of states using this approach establishes a special offense that provides for a milder punishment than murder; in the third approach, the law provides for the right to use euthanasia. The article provides a comparative analysis of the euthanasia procedure used in Belgium and the assisted suicide procedure used in Switzerland. In addition, the point of view of the European Court of Human Rights on the issues under consideration is given. The main research method is the analysis of scientific literature on the research topic, the analysis of normative acts of domestic and foreign legislation, a comparative analysis of the legal order of states that carry out various approaches to the application of the euthanasia procedure.