How to justify unreasonable - ways of legal reasoning of the ECHR in cases concerning morally sensitive issues

Our paper aims to outline the ways of reasoning used by the European Court of Human Rights concerning the right to decide about the beginning or end of human life (ending life without natural death, medically assisted procreation, abortion). The common factor of these matters is the attempt to determine the boundaries of permitting an autonomous decision about one's own life or the life of the person being brought into the world. The human rights framework within which the cases are considered is straightforward - these are Articles 2 and 8 of ECHR. In the majority of contemporary countries, these rights are also guaranteed by constitutional norms. However, the convention and constitutional norms fail to provide answers to the questions of how to solve the conflict between them in contentious situations and they delegate individual adjudication to the courts, eventually to the ECtHR. But the position of the ECtHR is exceptionally difficult to be justified. Due to the open nature of the norms, it is often impossible to achieve a reconciliation of the individual rights, according to personal judgement with the social, moral or customary norms designed for the protection of life. The Court thus tries to avoid to base its judgment on moral arguments potentially arising at the level of national solutions. The very fragile matter to be solved in described cases needs a reasoning deeply concerning the essence of human autonomy and its limits within the social life and demands of community. The ECtHR is therefore forced to use certain ways of reasoning. We assume that similarly to other courts, the ECtHR relies on three categories of argumentative patterns, based on the legal rhetoric (Perelman, MacCormick 1993). These are ways of reasoning refering to authority - an entity external to the one in which the decision is made, based on their power (external sources of law) or on the knowledge (epistemic authority). Secondly, we distinguish deontological ways. which comprise methods aiming at proving that the adopted solution is right and fair as it stems from the content of the Convention. The third, teleological category consists of methods using practical argumentation, no longer referring to the text or intention of a legal regulation, but rather to the impact of the judgment and the social practice it creates for the whole society. Taking into account this division, we distinguished in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR some most frequently used specific tools and patterns (medicla authority, best interest doctrine, protection of weak and vulnerable etc). Application of described methods in morally sensitive cases allows the court to avoid expressing ideological judgments. Particularly the use of teleological methods no longer addresses the world of values ​​or judgments, but rather refers to the common sense, creating a consensual vision of the society in which we want to live - or which we want to avoid. It helps to look for agreement in cases where it is exrtremely difficult to find one, satisfactory solution and avoid unambiguos declaration when it is not necessary.