Right to dispose of your own life: actualization of social-political context in COVID-19 pandemic conditions

Abstract

The article examines the content of a person's right to dispose of his life (with emphasis on socio-political meanings) as a component of his right to life, including assumptions, probabilistic or unacceptable, about alternatives to the deployment of individual elements of this possibility (voluntary departure from life, the assumption of euthanasia, as well as options for the embodiment of the idea and the right to risk your life).The last one is analyzed both in a classical way (within the framework of activities objectively related to occupational risks and other activities with similar characteristics), and in an updated context due to the coronavirus pandemic. The author reflects on the socio-political, sociological and other aspects that have manifested or strengthened their presence in doctrine, public practice and public policy in connection with the current emergency situation, illustrates them with specific examples, examines and criticizes individual decisions on this issue, especially in relation to the elderly people, states in this regard the emergence in the Russian socio-political space of a new type of minorities subjected to discrimination. It is also compares the strategy and tactics of decision-making by power structures and major confessions during a pandemic, including for the elderly. Considerations are expressed about the need to take into account the experience of making political decisions in such situations, and to correct them on the base of state, social and individual interests and meanings.