Der Schutz des pränatalen Lebens

Ralf Müller-Terpitz studies the legal status of prenatal life in national and international law. He analyzes the debate concerning this in other disciplines (science, ethics, theology) and their relevance for the legal debate. With regard to the constitutional law, the author comes to the conclusion that the embryo enjoys the basic right to protection of life and dignity starting with fertilization or a comparably early beginning of existence, and that this protection may not be »graduated« by referring to its still very early biological stage of development. Prenatal life is recognized as an object worthy of legal protection in international and Community law, but in these legal systems it is only granted a reduced »appropriate« protection from certain kinds of utilization.