RT Book
T1 The German Abortion Decisions and the Protective Function in German and Canadian Constitutional Law
A1 Hughes, Jula
A1 MacDonnell, Vanessa
A2 MacDonnell, Vanessa
LA English
YR 2013
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1866906046
AB In the First and Second Abortion decisions, the German Constitutional Court drew on earlier jurisprudence to hold that the state was under a constitutional duty to protect the fetus from deprivations of its interest in life by the pregnant woman. In this article, we suggest that Canadian constitutional law scholars and reproductive rights advocates would benefit from examining the German abortion decisions despite their highly controversial nature. In our view, the benefits are twofold. First, the German cases demonstrate that recognizing the protective function can help clarify constitutional doctrine by revealing the tensions that underlie many difficult constitutional cases. Second, a synthetic reading of the German and Canadian Courts’ abortion jurisprudence generates a more fulsome and nuanced analysis of the issues raised in the those cases, as well as additional critical commentary on the Courts’ analyses and conclusions