[Late-term abortions--a legislative problem]

Abstract

Based on the coalition agreement of 2005 aimed at improving the situation regarding late-term abortions, the author examines to what extent the current legislation on abortion requires amendment. In an historical overview, he explores the long tradition of the step-wise protection of life commensurate with the gradual "animation" of the fetus, the abortion of which by "human hand" was a punishable crime. Having been observed in civil codes of modern times for centuries, this tradition finally perished in section sign 218 of 1871. With the embryopathic indication of 1974, a comparatively late deadline of 22 weeks came back into force. However, since the German Bundestag overruled this indication in 1995, only the unlimited (until birth) medico-social indication (section sign 218 par. 2 of the German criminal code) applies to late terminations, according to which even late terminations of fetuses of extrauterine viability are "not unlawful". While examining both decisions of the German Federal Constitutional Court and the literature, the author makes the case for restricting section sign 281 a par. 2 with extrauterine viability of the child--according to the constitutional preservation of life and our legal tradition--strictly to those cases where the pregnant woman's life is in danger.