How Much Is an Abortion Worth? Was a Human "Not Formed"? An Italian Proposal

Abstract

Introduction: "Human capital" is defined as an integration of innate skills and knowledge acquired by investing in the formation of an individual; it is a real "capital" that pays off in the long term. In the Italian legal system, a human being is recognised as a "person" from the moment of birth. This determines the acquisition of the personal rights of an individual. Necessarily, therefore, by law, a fetus does not own such rights; nevertheless, it has an innate "potential" to acquire such rights after birth.

Objective: In Italian jurisprudence, in general, the damage from a loss of a parental relationship is justified by the condition of existential emptiness caused in the family by the loss of a child. Compensation for this damage in the event of abortion due to third-party responsibility presents a non-uniform recognition in the judgements of the Italian courts, but in any case, it is almost always recognised with limitations since the emotional relationship with the lost individual is defined only in terms of "potential". Consequently, in this matter, at least two questions can be raised: (i) Is the economic estimate of abortion based on objective and standardised criteria, or is it heavily influenced by subjective evaluation? (ii) Is it possible to find standard criteria that may act as guidelines to quantify the loss of that human capital "in progress"?

Methodology: The authors try to answer these questions by analysing the different approaches to this issue adopted at an international level.

Conclusions: In conclusion, the authors propose homogeneous criteria to quantify the damage caused by abortion.

Keywords: abortion; fetus; human capital; indemnity; malpractice assessment.

Figure 1

Risk of miscarriage according to maternal age. The bars for each point reflect the 95% confidence intervals (table extracted from Magnus et al. [20]).