BLOOD TRANSFUSION: LEGAL ASPECTS

As the object of a right protected by the Brazilian Constitution, life has a boarder meaning the merely biological, including inviolability of freedom of conscience and belief, as also as rights of person, and mainly, the right to physical integrity and freedom of will. What if there is, during the performance of a medical-hospital procedure, invocation, on the part of the patient ' s family, of excuse of conscience, founded - as it happens more frequently - on religious reasons, to prevent blood transfusion that would be essential to the maintenance of the ' life ?? Is the doctor forbidden to perform the medical procedure without the consent of the patient or his legal guardian, even in imminent danger of life ? The issue is not new, at least for jurisprudence; nevertheless, we have always had to face it cautiously, due, in most cases, to the absence of specific legal regulation on the subject and, moreover, in view of the very peculiarity of the issue. Starting from this theme-problem, the article aims to treat the hypotheses of medical conduct, introducing at the end a proposal for a solution.