CHAPTER 9: The embryo in comparative law

Abstract

Thinking about the embryo has always been a difficult endeavor whatever the angle at which one strives to do it: yet it is a constant concern of humanity. To what modern biology of the human embryo says is added, in a more decisive way, in the order of meaning and ethics, the contribution of cultural and religious traditions - traditions also attest to the difficulty and perhaps the impossibility of a precise and rational definition of the human being in development ”1. Situated at the edge of life, thereby falling almost under metaphysics, further dividing science and never ceasing to animate debates, a question seems legally insoluble: that relating to the status of the human embryo.