Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

Publication Information

12 Fam. L. 47 (1982).

Abstract

Unlike the American Supreme Court which has been prepared to acknowledge, confront, and attempt to resolve the many problems associated with abortion, the European Commission of Human Rights in two cases that have only recently been reported has disappointingly side-stepped many of the difficult issues involved, and raised more questions than it answers. Furthermore, the reasoning in these decisions, which are concerned with the interpretation of several of the Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, is at times vague and curiously ill-argued. The two decisions are first a German case, Bruggeman and Scheuten v Federal Republic of Germany, in which judgment was given in July 1977, and secondly Paton v United Kingdom, in which judgment was given in May 1980. Although both cases relied heavily on Articles 2 and 8, each also raised questions concerning other Articles of the Convention. This was inevitable since the cases dealt with different sides of the abortion argument, the former with women's rights, and the latter with the rights of the father and the foetus.

Comments

Geoffrey Bennett joined the Notre Dame London Law Program as an adjunct associate professor of law in 1992 and served as the program's director from 1995 to his retirement in 2016.

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