LA PROTECTION SOCIO-JURIDIQUE DE L'ENFANT ISSU PAR LA PROCRÉATION ARTIFICIELLE
SOCIO-LEGAL PROTECTION OF CHILDREN FROM THE ARTIFICIAL REPRODUCTION

Summary/Abstract: Since over a decade jurists have found themselves amidst an unexpected and comprehensive debate between biomedical sciences and the law: the development of artificial procreation techniques, in biology and medicine, prompted changes within the family and social structure, within the limits of existing legal principles, and mutated the classical representation of values regarding the person and its physical integrity from the perspective of procreation and the sanguinity-based family. Artificial procreation or medically-assisted procreation techniques significantly exemplify this phenomenon. Part of the new issues result from, on the one hand, the replacement, by means of in vitro fertilization (FIVET), of the sanguinity-based family with an ‘artificial’ family, reconstituted from the gametes of anonymous subjects and, on the other hand, the manipulations of the human embrio and the predetermination of the human genetic heritage. Which is, however, the role of law in this field, with regard to the psycho-social and juridical issues concerning the protection of personality, contracting right, civil responsibility and filiation? The answer is provided by bioethics through possible solutions that represent, in fact, linking points between biomedical studies and the law, and which establish rules regarding donor anonymacy, the previous consent of the sterile couple and the impossiblity of contesting artificial filiation. Thus, in European countries, filiation law is profoundly divided in what concerns artificial procreation. An overview of the situation allowed specialists in the field to observe the existence of two legislative tendencies: one in which technical development prevails, and another which emphasizes a person’s interest with regard to the new practices, especially the interest of the thus born child. In the Romanian specialized literature there are possible solutions of lege ferenda regarding the effects of artificial filiation, seen as similar to those of natural filiation, except for proof, which is achieved either as in the case of natural filiation, or as in the case of adoptive filiation, function of its manner of regulation.

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