Euthanasia: Moral and Legal Aspects

The practice of artificially taking the life of a person suffering from an incurable disease and experiencing unbearable suffering as a result of this disease is traditionally called euthanasia. At the same time, such actions were evaluated and are currently evaluated ambiguously both from the standpoint of moral and legal. Accordingly, the issues of euthanasia (as well as causing death with the consent of a person in general) should be solved from the standpoint of their comprehensive research (not only from the standpoint of directly legal, but also from the point of view of philosophy, morality, religion, psychology, medicine). The article presents the data of our own research on the criminal-legal meaning of a person's consent to the death of another person. At the same time, it is stated that the public opinion of citizens is inclined to the non-criminality of taking the life of another person with his consent. In turn, experts-supporters of the legalization of euthanasia - along with arguments of a moral and moral nature point directly to the legal aspects. At the same time, the article states that the absolute prohibition of euthanasia (including any kind of deprivation of life with the consent of a person) is justified. Accordingly, it is concluded that the implementation of euthanasia should not exclude the criminality of the act, which, of course, is regarded as murder. At the same time, it is noted that for cases of deprivation of life in the implementation of euthanasia, legal rules should be provided for mitigating the reaction to the actions of the harm-causing agent.