Russian academician: Euthanasia in Russia will become a legal way to seize human organs

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If a law allowing euthanasia appears in Russia, the risk of criminal seizure of human organs sharply increases, Member of the Russian State Duma, Doctor of Medicine, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences academician Sergey Kolesnikov (United Russia) told a REGNUM correspondent commenting on Senator Valentina Petrenko’s initiative to draft such a law. “I respect Valentina Petrenko very much, but I do not understand what caused the initiative: either by willingness to draw attention or by some other reasons. I strongly oppose legalization of euthanasia. Corruption and crime rates in this country make me take such initiatives very seriously. So, it will become one of legal ways to seize property of an individual, depending on how the procedure is stated by the law,” Kolesnikov believes. “It is no secret that there is a practice of signing contracts with elderly people on using their organs after their death. In this case it would be legal,” he said.

“As a doctor I know that when it becomes impossible to sustain immune activity of the human organism (for instance, in case of brain death), a decision is made to stop resuscitation with consent of the family. But this is not euthanasia. It can be called ‘a voluntary decision to take one’s life.’ How voluntary is it here? They would say it is necessary to relieve pain, but today the level of painkilling is almost in 100% enough not to make it a reason to take one’s life. There is another question: who will make the decision and who will carry out the procedure? Doctors should be in no way involved in it. Well, will the family want to be the executioner? Thus, a special position of the executioner is to be introduced in hospitals, but I do not know whether this is legal,” Kolesnikov said.

Earlier, Russian State Duma deputy chair Vladimir Pekhtin said the law on euthanasia contradicts the president’s proposal to improve the demographic situation in the country.