Constitutional and legal guarantees of protection of the rights of the unborn child in Russia

The article discusses the realization of the right to human life from the moment of conception. The article is based on the consideration of normative legal acts, scientific literature and court decisions. In the course of the research, traditional methods of scientific cognition were used: analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparative legal, system methods. Dialectical and logical methods were also used in the work, which created the basis for a comprehensive study of optimal mechanisms for protecting human life from the moment of conception. The use of the system-structural method made it possible to investigate the problem of protecting the constitutional right to life of unborn children in connection with the constitutional guarantee of health protection of citizens in the Russian Federation, to assess the constitutional goals of restricting human rights when recognizing the right to life from the moment of conception. The comparative legal method made it possible to analyze the regulations protecting the lives of unborn children in foreign countries. The authors found that the right to life from the moment of conception, despite the fact that it is not fixed in Russia, is recognized by the state indirectly and is provided by the legal regulation of the medical care system for the human embryo and fetus, a developed system of specialized medical care. The constitutional right to the life of a child from the moment of conception in Russia is not absolute, since every woman up to 12 weeks of pregnancy has the right to terminate it at will, and also due to the fact that the protection of fetal life in the health care system, in case of threats to its development and health, is carried out with the consent of a pregnant woman. The legal asymmetry of protecting the life of unborn children has been revealed: doctors are obliged to protect it from the moment a woman applies to a medical organization, from the moment a pregnant woman is registered in a women's clinic, while the duties of a pregnant woman to preserve the life of an unborn child are not established by Russian legislation. The terms of the intrauterine development of the child, at which it is possible to bring to criminal responsibility for the death of an unborn child in Russia, have been determined. Doctors are criminally responsible for the death of a child at 22 weeks of gestation, and at 37 weeks - women who killed a newborn child, which contradicts the constitutional principle of equality of all before the law and the court. The article provides evidence of the expediency of further legal protection of the life and health of unborn children in Russian legislation, taking into account the most appropriate norms of the legislation of foreign countries, allowing to minimize the negative impact of harmful psychoactive substances on the health and life of the child. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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