Gender equality, right to life and pratical reason : what about the frozen embryos?

Abstract

The rapid evolution of Assisted Reproduction Techniques (ART) in a few years is generating a multitude of ethical and legal problems that do not give time to resolve. Also, the use of some of these techniques, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), has caused the accumulation of millions of surplus embryos, which remains frozen in the Assisted Reproduction Clinics distributed throughout the world. It seems compulsory, from the point of view of practical reason, to analyze the justice of some decisions of the ECHR on assisted reproduction, in which the right to life of frozen embryos, as potential future persons, unable of defending their rights by themselves, and whose vulnerability is even greater than that of the nasciturus, comes into collision with other values, ideas or rights, and attending, both to the arguments used by the majority and dissenting votes, and to those handled by the main working groups of the EU in this matter.

Keywords:

Philosophy of law Assisted reproduction Frozen embryos Right to life European court of human rights

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