CHAPTER 4: THE NON STATUS OF THE EMBRYO IN BELGIAN LAW

Abstract

In Belgian law, the granting of legal personality presupposes the meeting of three conditions being born, alive and viable.
The embryo therefore does not have this personality, namely the ability to acquire rights and obligations.
Any other solution would have unacceptable consequences, whether for the right of women to voluntary termination of the pregnancy or for the future of research and medical acts involving the use of the embryo: medically assisted procreation, embryo donation, embryo research …
However, the embryo cannot be totally assimilated to a thing in view of its biological existence.
This difference between legal personality and human personality leads the legislator to surround all manipulations of the embryo with guarantees and conditions intended to ensure a respectful framework for this potentiality of life.