[When does human life begin? Legal considerations].

: There have been attempts to define the beginning of life from a legal point of view. The German civil code of 1923 specified that only that entity can have birthright that was alive at the time of succession. Whoever was not alive at the time of succession but was already fertilized would be deemed as born before the succession. The law in this instance does not really define life, rather it regulates the hereditary right of the fetus. Less subject to misunderstanding is Paragraph 1 of the German Law Book, which refers to the legal rights of human beings from the completion of birth, specifying only the live born and not the still-born. The embryo protection law in force as of January 1, 1991, defines the beginning of life in a medical sense, to wit, the embryo is the fertilized egg cell capable of development already from the time of fertilization. Additionally every cell with the potential to divide and develop into an individual is assumed as an embryo. No other law explicitly provides a similar definition of the appearance of early human life. Some foreign legal precepts designate the embryonic conceptus the preembryo, which could be subjected to procedures in reproductive medicine to which more developed embryos could not be. According to the valid Paragraph 219 d of the Penal Code, a procedure is not considered an abortion when its effects occur before the completion of nidation of the fertilized egg cell in the uterus. This does not define the beginning of life, it only says something about the beginning of legal protection of unborn life. In the view of constitutional law Article 2, Section 2 of the German Basic Law, every person has the right to life and bodily integrity, which rights can only be infringed on in accordance with the law. However, personhood and life are not defined.