Real Protection for the Embryo

Abstract

Introduction

The title of this paper calls for an explanation since it is open to a variety of interpretations. I shall focus on two of these.

Real protection means, first and foremost, an actual protection in terms of legal effectiveness, a protection that is not conditioned by ethical or philosophical assumptions, but rather is based on the regulatory content of the entire legal system: thus, a concrete protection of the embryo considered in its ontological significance. In short, real protection implies the elaboration of suitable regulatory conditions deriving from quo utimur law, in no way linked to arguments of a moral nature.

Real protection also means objective defence, in the sense that it considers the embryo as the object entitled to a safeguard that the law attributes to human life as such; and therefore to be evaluated in its realness as the subject of the intervention. Real protection therefore means material support, aimed at producing legally significant results emanating from the overall legal and constitutional system in force.