Right to Life: Improvements in the Legislation of the Russian Federation Concerning Palliative Care

This article raises the issues of organizing palliative care as one of the forms of implementing the right to life. The authors identify and describe the principles of palliative care. International law regulating palliative care is reviewed, along with a brief overview of the development of Russian law concerning palliative care and a list of patients who may be subject to palliative care. Special attention is given to the issue of decision-making by the patient's family. In connection with that, examples are cited for foreign models of communication between palliative care and decision science researchers, theorists, and clinicians, patients and their families for the purpose of exchanging information and studying the patients' health issues, discussing treatment options and making coordinated decisions during the life-limiting illness of patients. The results of this research are based on using the following methods: universal dialectical method of scientific cognition, as well as general scientific methods based on it (description, analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison, analogy, generalization) and specific scientific methods (comparative law method, systematic structural method and formal law method).