title: [Must the European fetus be a legal chameleon?].
abstract: Currently a legal "haze" surrounds the problem of the fetus in Europe, and there is a need to set this problem in order as a safety for intervening physicians. Actually, some legislation tends to protect the fetus while others authorize its destruction. Under the French law, the fetus appears quite personalized. For instance, in the jurisprudence of non-assistance to a person in danger, it was suggested that an obstetrician perform an immediate caesarean section after death. Other authors have advocated emergency transfusion of blood or blood products to a pregnant woman who refuses any treatment because of religious beliefs, when a fetal risk was demonstrated. Most jurisdictions indict for voluntary homicide when an obstetrician's or a midwife's fault has resulted in fetal death in utero or during delivery. On the contrary, suppression on intra-uterine life may be considered as legal within the framework of the law on VIG (voluntary interruption of pregnancy), as no date-limit is provided for therapeutic interruption of pregnancy. Therefore, severe maternal distress and the strong probability of a fetal malformation incompatible with life, leave the specialists quite undecided in the face of requests for therapeutic interruptions that some jurists have justifiably advised to name, most of the time, "eugenic". The author mentions the fetus conceived after rape or incest, the fetus presenting a malformation, the fetus with trisomy..., who are not particularly protected from a legal standpoint, as well as the fetus threatened of destruction after a sex selection or if the fetus is among an excessive number resulting from ovarian hyperstimulation.
authors.affiliation: Département de Clinique Gynécologique, Obstétricale et de la Reproduction du CHU, Universitaire et Maternité du Beffroi, Tours.
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Soutoul
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005333:Fetus; D005602:France; D006806:Human Rights; D006801:Humans; D007603:Jurisprudence; D011247:Pregnancy
vernacular_title: Le foetus européen doit-il être un "caméléon" juridique?