Implementation of Inheritance Rights in the Context of the Use of Reproductive Technologies

The paper analyzes the importance of reproductive technologies as to inheritance law, examines the conditions for the exercise of the rights of heirs by law or will to reproductive material after the death of the person who provided it, as well as issues related to the establishment of the fact of the child’s descent from specific persons. The author notes that these problems are more regulated in common law countries, the judicial practice of which has gradually developed the doctrine-supported concept of the possibility of disposing of biomaterials in case of death and posthumous conception of a child as the basis for establishing its origin and recognizing its inheritance rights. The issues raised are widely discussed in modern doctrine, but the current legislation does not contain any relevant instructions, and the conservative approach to their solution still dominates in Russian judicial practice. Based on the study of the most significant opinions of foreign courts, the author makes a conclusion about the expediency of creatively borrowing the most successful of them in the further development of Russian inheritance law and the need to transfer to the legal field solutions to complex ethical problems associated with the birth of posthumous offspring. In order to expand the testamentary capacity of Russian citizens and taking into account the possibilities of modern assisted reproductive technologies, it is proposed to allow the transfer of the reproductive biological material of the deceased person to the surviving spouse or parents, to consolidate the right of citizens to dispose of such material in a will and to provide for the possibility of including living children born within 3 years after the death of the testator among the heirs.