Constitutional-legal dispute on posthumous reproduction: presumption of consent or disagreement?

The subject. The article considers a constitutional-legal dispute on posthumous reproduction, which became the subject of consideration in the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in 2024. On February 11, 2025, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation issued a decision recognizing that norms of the legislation on social security are violated the Constitution of the Russian Federation. This decision gives rise to a number of new legal problems in the field of constitutional, civil, inheritance, medical law and social security law. At present, there is no legislative regulation of posthumous reproduction in the Russian Federation.The purpose of the article:– to establish the presence or absence of positive obligations of the state in relation to the somatic right to reproductive choice;– to determine the presumption of consent or disagreement to posthumous reproduction;– to propose possible measures to prevent constitutional conflicts related to posthumous reproduction.The methodology of the study includes general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, description) and legal methods, method of constitutional conflict diagnosis. In addition to this, historical method was also applicable. The article also uses a comparative legal method to analyze the legislation and practice of foreign countries such as the USA, France and Japan.Main results. The author proposes to eliminate the legislative gap by establishing at the statutory level a presumption of consent or disagreement in accordance with the following legislative formulas:– presumption of consent: posthumous reproduction using the sex cells (or embryos created with their help) of a deceased person is not permitted if the medical organization was informed at the time of using the relevant assisted reproductive technologies that the person, during his or her lifetime, declared his or her disagreement with the use of his or her sex cells (or embryos created with their help) for the purpose of procreation after death;– presumption of disagreement: posthumous reproduction using the sex cells (or embryos created with their help) of a deceased person is permitted only if the medical organization has, at the time of using the relevant assisted reproductive technologies, a written expression of the person's will, given during his or her lifetime, of consent to the use of his or her sex cells (or embryos created with their help) after death for the purpose of procreation.