Birth and its Civil Consequences
Abstract
The development of medical technology has made the process of human life development more accessible for observation and has raised several legal problems, including questions about the legal nature of the embryo. The subject of the study is the question of the moment of the beginning of human legal personality. The aim of the article is to find out whether the classical rule that the legal personality of a person arises from the moment of birth needs to be revised taking into account new medical and legal achievements. The research methods are comparative-legal method and techniques of analytical jurisprudence. Conclusions are suggested for discussion. The embryo and foetus cannot be classified as either subjects or things; the author proposes the conclusion that the embryo is an object of civil rights of a special kind, closely related to personal intangible goods. None of the attempts to find any other moment of the emergence of legal personality than birth is free from conventionality. The doctrine of the stages of development of legal personality seems promising. The legal nature of the zygote is not equal to the legal nature of the foetus in its eighth month of development. As the human organism develops, the protection afforded to it by the law increases. However, even at an early stage of its development, future human life must be respected and protected by the law. Therefore, the embryo invitro cannot be recognized as a thing, it is a special object of law. At the same time, germ cells contain only a part of genetic information, so it seems possible to apply to them the norms of civil law on things. Claims “wrongful birth” and “wrongful life” are considered, it is emphasized that the possibility of such claims should not lead to a denial of the value of life; the preservation of life cannot be considered as a special case of harm.
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