Civil Law Protection Of Foetus' Benefits

Foetus is the stage that all natural persons must experience in the course of life development. Protecting foetus' benefits is inevitable requirement for protecting natural person's personal and property benefits comprehensively. In present days, civil laws made by different countries show the concern about the protection of foetus' benefits to different degrees. The countries adopting continental legal system attach importance to the protection of foetus' property benefits in terms of making legislation, while seem not to focus on protection of foetus' personal benefits. However, the countries adopting Anglo-America legal system are considerate in protecting foetus' personal benefits and the reasons for law cases concerning the damage compensation for foetus in judicial practice are much more complicated than those made by the countries adopting continental legal system. In China, it is only the 28th judicial item in 《Inheritance Law》 that makes stipulation about the foetus' inheritance benefits. The loopholes in legislation make it difficult or even impossible for judicial courts to well protect foetus' benefits in judicial practice. Under such circumstances, it seems urgent and important to conduct researches on civil law protection of foetus' benefits in China. The current paper makes in-depth and thorough study about the relevant issues concerning the protection of foetus' benefits by adopting the research methods of comparative analysis and theory analysis. This paper tries to avoid discussing this issue from the perspective of theory of capacity for rights, which is regarded as a perplex in exploring the issue of protecting foetus' benefits. On the contrary, the author tends to analyze the reasons for civil law protection of foetus' benefits on the basis of theory of expansion protection for personal rights and maintains that the foetus' benefits are legal benefits rather than rights. With regard to the purpose of protecting foetus and foetus' physical characteristics, the scope of foetus' benefits are restricted to the benefits enjoyed by foetus in terms of health, status, inheritance, receiving devise and benefiting from bonds. Except health benefits, civil laws should provide foetus due support when their other...