page_title: Fetal rights
section_title: Fetal rights by country
hierarchical_section_title: Fetal rights / Fetal rights by country
caption_attribution_description: English: Original caption: President George W. Bush signs H.R. 1997, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, in the East Room Thursday, April 1, 2004. The legislation makes it a crime to harm an unborn child in an assault on a pregnant woman. Pictured are, from left: Sen. Mike DeWine, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Rep. Melissa Hart, Carol Lyons, Buford Lyons, Sharon Rocha, Ron Grantski, Tracy Marciniak-Seavers, Cynthia Warner, and Stephanie Alberts. Source: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/04/images/20040401-3_012t9490-515h.html Usage:
context_page_description: Fetal rights are the moral rights or legal rights of the human fetus under natural and civil law. The term fetal rights came into wide usage after the landmark case Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion in the United States in 1973. The concept of fetal rights has evolved to include the issues of maternal drug and alcohol abuse. The only international treaty specifically tackling fetal rights is the American Convention on Human Rights which envisages the right to life of the fetus. While international human rights instruments lack a universal inclusion of the fetus as a person for the purposes of human rights, the fetus is granted various rights in the constitutions and civil codes of several countries. Many legal experts believe there is an increasing need to settle the legal status of the fetus.
context_section_description: Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago (denounced), Uruguay and Venezuela (denounced).
  The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland gave "the unborn" a right to life equal to that of "the mother". In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the fetus' only inherent constitutionally protected right is the right to be born, overturning a High Court ruling that a fetus additionally possessed the children's rights guaranteed by Article 42A of the Constitution. On 25 May 2018, a referendum was passed which amended the Constitution by the substitution of the former provision recognising the right to life of the unborn, with one permitting the Oireachtas, the Irish Parliament, to legislate for the termination of pregnancies. This amendment took effect when it was signed into law by the President of Ireland on 18 September 2018, and abortion was governed by the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 until it was replaced and repealed by the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, which took effect on 1 January 2019.
  In the United States, as of 2014, thirty-eight states provide certain level of criminal protection for the unborn, and twenty-three of these states have laws that protect the fetus from conception until birth. All US states–by statute, court rule or case law–permit a guardian ad litem to represent the interests of the unborn. In 1999, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act was introduced into United States Congress which defines violent assault committed against pregnant women as being a crime against two victims: the woman and the fetus she carries.  This law was passed in 2004 after the murder of Laci Peterson and the fetus she was carrying. In 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush announced a plan to ensure health care coverage for fetuses under the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
  The civil codes of several countries, such as China (including Hong Kong and Macau) and Russia, as well as some US states, grant fetus inheritance rights, usually under the born alive rule. In the civil code of Iran, fetus can inherit in case of abortion that took place due to a crime, as long as the fetus was alive even for a second after birth. Under the civil code of Japan, for the purposes of inheritance the fetus is deemed to have already been born. The civil codes of the Philippines and Spain envisage that donations to the unborn children can be made and accepted by "persons who would legally represent them if they were already born". The same is allowed by the Malikis.
  Alongside Norway, the Constitution of Bhutan grants the unborn royal children the right to succession, but only if there is no male heir.
caption: United States President George W. Bush signs the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004
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