Almanac of law. Issue 14 (2023), pages 352–360.

DOI: 10.33663/2524-017X-2023-14-352-360

ISSN Print 2524-017X

Tarasevych T. Yu.
Legal thanatology and the right to death: problems and prospects for studying somatic human rights

The article examines the somatic rights of a person through the prism of «discourse of death». Emphasis is placed on the problems of legal thanatology as a science about death. Philosophical, religious and cultural differences in concepts and definition of human death. It is noted that an important component of medical thanatology is the concept of thanatogenesis — the causes and mechanisms of the onset of death, a set of interdependent pathological processes that lead to the onset of clinical or biological death. Knowledge of the basic patterns of thanatogenesis and detection of changes that trigger the process of thanatogenesis are necessary for timely and adequate correction of critical conditions that occur in patients. The time of death of a person is the moment of his brain death or his biological death (irreversible death of a person). Brain death can occur with complete and irreversible cessation of all its functions, which is registered with a working heart and artificial ventilation of the lungs. The methodology for diagnosing death is not related to the concept that there are different types of death. Loss of cardiovascular and respiratory function can lead to death only when ischemia and anoxia are prolonged enough to cause irreversible brain damage. Legal thanatology should be considered as an independent direction in modern jurisprudence within the framework of general theoretical jurisprudence. It is related to medical bioethics, medical law, and, from this point of view, it identifies the gaps that exist in jurisprudence and medicine and, if possible, eliminates them. Legal thanatology is a kind of «bridge» and «filter» of achievements in the field of medicine and legal science, which further helps law to «go hand in hand» with medicine. It was concluded that in the conditions of an increase in the number of donor centers, the extreme ethical importance of diagnosing brain death determines the need for high accuracy, speed and safety of its establishment. The above data show that the problem of brain death, as before, remains an open scientific problem. The concept of brain death continues to develop, refine, and improve. Any new circumstances (clinical observations, scientific facts) have to be tested again and again as arguments in defense of life or in defense of death.

Key words: human rights, right to death, somatic rights, legal thanatology, death, human body, time of death, brain death.

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Tetyana Yuriivna Tarasevich,
Associate Professor of the Department of Public Law Disciplines
Vinnytsia State Pedagogical University
named after Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi,
Candidate of Law, Associate Professor
ORCID: 0000-0002-3860-9909

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