Euthanasia in Serbia: Attitudes of Students of Law and Medicine

Abstract

Background Voluntary active euthanasia represents one of the key topics in the contemporary world medicine, law, religious, ethical and moral issues. Serbia considers legalization of this procedure. Between the others, it is important to examine the student’s attitudes regarding this issue. Methods Data were obtained from the faculties of law and medicine, from the universities of Kragujevac and Niš, Serbia. Data were collected during the second half of 2017. The research included 214 students. Due to the nature, subject and hypothesis of the research, the authors used descriptive method and the method of the theoretical content analysis. Results Generally, 54% of the students are in favor of legalization of the voluntary active euthanasia. 62, 4% would take part in the referendum on the legalization euthanasia. Conclusion The results obtained in the survey on euthanasia on a sample of law and medical students in Niš and Kragujevac indicate that choice of the faculty (law or medicine) influences the structure (share) of responses to particular questions to some extent. However, this influence does not provide ground for conclusion that students’ opinion on legalization and application of euthanasia depends on fact they study law or medicine.