La vida y la salud frente a la autonomía en el Derecho penal españolanálisis de algunos supuestos

Abstract

This paper provides a critical analysis on the reach of legal protection of life and health of an individual when these interests contradict the autonomy of their own will. The text is centered about the legal response to these conflicts in the ambit of the following offenses: Assisted suicide, injuries, organ trafficking and doping. The main conclusions to make from this analysis are, on one side, that our criminal law barely values the individual autonomy when these interests collide with life or health; and, on the other side, that the most prevailing feature of the legal treatment of these cases is the absence of a clear and coherent line of acting on how the individual autonomy must be valued against their life or health in a Democratic and Liberal State.