Legal Aspects of the Beginning of Human Life

Abstract

The claim of this paper to be international is modest. It considers legal aspects of the beginning of human life in the context only of the English Common Law tradition, as opposed to that, for instance, of the Civil Law tradition of continental Europe, and approaches the Common Law through the legal experiences of the United States, Canada, and England. The legal systems of these countries often invoke the ethical and moral principles of Judeo-Christian culture, but they are essentially secular in their modern forms. In contrast, the legal systems of Islamic countries often not only reflect Islamic values but actively center their legal rules on such values. That is, the contrast between secular and religious law that is apparent in Western legal systems is not drawn, and Islamic sacred texts provide the content of applied law. Common Law systems tend to be pragmatic and empirical in their approach to the beginning of human life, neither self-conscious about nor embarrassed by their indifference to the spiritual status of unborn human life. Political legislatures have occasionally enacted that human life is to be recognized from conception,1 but insofar as such legislation has an effect it is to change the general law. Some U.S. state courts have recently allowed claims on behalf of stillborn fetuses, but have thereby done some violence to the logic and justice of their laws.2