Euthanasia and assisted suicide in Brazilian criminal law and in comparative law

• Grant number: 17/17001-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2017
• End date: November 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law - Public Law
• Principal Investigator: Paulo César Corrêa Borges
• Grantee: Beatriz Mellin Campos Azevedo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The issue of the individual's autonomy at the moment of death is debated by lawyers, philosophers and health professionals from many areas around the world. In the legal system of some countries, there is the understanding that people should have the right to opt for death to escape a life marked by suffering. This is the case of the Netherlands and Belgium, where euthanasia and assisted suicide by are permitted, and Switzerland, where only assisted suicide is authorized by the Penal Code. On the other hand, in Brazil, such practices are criminally punished, although there is a bill that, despite maintaining the criminalization of these practices, provides for the judicial pardon of its perpetrators, in certain circumstances, and authorizes orthothanasia (PLS 236/2012, articles 122 and 123). The Brazilian legislation, including proposals for legislative changes, will be compared with Swiss, Dutch and Belgian laws, regarding euthanasia and assisted suicide, with the objective to better understand the established solutions by Brazilian law for the right to a dignified death and, later, to make suggestions for improvement to the bills that already exist in Brazil. In order to do so, a bibliographical review of the specialized doctrine on the subject in Brazil and in those three countries will be carried out and, in an interdisciplinary perspective, the actual Brazilian criminal legislation, the legislative changes in process, the legislation of the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland will be analyzed, under the national and foreign doctrinal perspective regarding Integrated Criminal Sciences (Criminal, Dogmatic Legal and Criminology), and the principles of bioethics and bio-law, in the proposed subject. (AU)