The constitutional right to bioethical well-being and patient dignity in biomedicine: Prospects for normative, legislative and judicial constitutionalization (domestic and international aspects)

Abstract

The article considers bioethical well-being and dignity of patients as theoretical, public law concepts; the influence of secular and theological approaches on the understanding of human rights and human dignity, the birth of patients’ rights from the nature and social significance of human rights; the link between bioethics and medicine and human well-being; the role of the trend of patient-orientated healthcare and bioethics in the creation of normative foundations and the formation of the prospects for constitutionalization of bioethical well-being. The author notes the intellectual significance of the concept “Anthropocene” for changing the vector of development of human activity and the formation of biological law and neuro-law, as well as the rights of generations in the Anthropocene. The author reveals scientific approaches to understanding health as a constitutional value with two levels of institutionalization: (1) health as a personal value with an individual level of institutionalization through the patient’s rights; (2) health as a social value with a collective and public level of institutionalization as public health. The article proposes measures to improve healthcare legislation: the author’s legal definition of bioethical well-being and the principle of achieving bioethical well-being. This article substantiates the concept of “dignity of the patient in bioethics and biomedicine” from the standpoint of the Russian and international context and reveals the content of the principle of respect for human dignity as a great principle of modernity in biolaw and bioethics. The author believes there are four directions in the study of dignity in the field of health care, bioethics, and biomedicine. The first scientific area forms an ethical and philosophical explanation of human dignity: what the basis for dignity is and what properties (qualities) of dignity have theoretical significance and influence clinical care and health policy. The second area is empirical research that helps to clarify the value of dignity in the life experiences of patients and healthcare professionals. The third area is practice-oriented work, which proposes one or another strategy of respect for dignity in professional medical practice, as well as in the structures of organizations and health systems. The fourth area is research on the taxonomy of violations of human dignity in the health sector. The article contains reflections on the medico-social and legal content of the concept “dignity of the patient”, on the content of the principle of priority respect and protection of the dignity of the patient in the provision of medical care. The article uses methods of discursive and comparative legal analysis, the method of constitutional design, specific historical and formal legal methods of analysis. The author concludes that in modern bioethics and bio-law, the dignity of the patient must be recognized both as a subjective right and as a guiding principle of biomedicine for the purpose of achieving bioethical well-being.