미성년자의 생명권과 국가의 보호의무 -종교의 자유와 생명권의 충돌을 중심으로-

This paper's topic is about minors' right to life. It mainly focuses on the conflict between the freedom of religion and the right to life in case when minors who are under parental rights lose their consciousness because of the illness. Especially I dealt with the problems can occur when parents with parental rights exercise their passed out underage children's right to life and freedom of religion. The fact is that we don't have much to do to the parents who violate their unconscious children's right to life in the name of religion. To make it clear in constitution, I made sure the minors situation as those possess both religious freedom and right to life. The government whose one of the duties is to protect its citizen's rights, must protect those minors with the fundamental human rights. Unfortunately, however, in Korea, because the provision for this is not so clear, I referred to cases in other countries. I mainly focused on the cases of United States because the hospital's ethic committee structure for the recent case of a minor's death on the religious reason resembles the one ones in America. In addition, I included recent comments on the special protection for the minors (or underaged) in the constitution. In my personal opinion, it is unnecessary to apply any other legal provisions to protect the minors with religious rights and right to life. I also researched on two Korean cases related to religious freedom. Lastly, while I was researching on the problems can occur when forfeiting parental right suggested by civil law part, I found out that under the current legal system, it is difficult to protect minor's by forfeiture of parental right when their right to life it threatened. Therefore,I believe that we need a new law for the minors in order to protect their right to life.