LA PROTECCIÓN DEL NASCITURUS Y SU PROYECCIÓN EN LA JURISPRUDENCIA CIVIL ACTUAL.

Abstract

Birth confers legal personality, but the unborn child is held to have been born to all effects in the child's favour, provided that it is human in shape and lives for twenty-four hours entirely detached from its mother. The generic substantive protection of the unborn child, which in our legislation is historically linked to civil law, has evolved toward other spheres of protection, namely public law. Case-law grants the unborn child indemnification for mental anguish, recognises the unborn child's ability to be the beneficiary of an insured sum in life insurance for the case of death and the recipient of maintenance, and recognises the unborn child's standing as donee, heir, legatee and party to legal proceedings; but case-law also declares the unborn child abandoned when its family situation is one of high social risk.