Legal status of the unborn and its protection through Criminal Law

Moral status of unborn and legal ways of its protection have been the matters of discussions in almost every culture. The purposes of this research are examining the protection that is provided to unborn by the Turkish Criminal Law and emphasizing that there is no regulation about causing bodiliy injury to unborn. There are different opinions about moral status of unborn. To understand which of those opinions are applicable and preferable, regulations of different states on embryonic stem cell researches and termination of pregnancy are analyzed in the second heading of this resaerch. The regulations of the states on those two subjects have given a general opinion about the status of unborn, moment of acquiring the status of being a person and legal protection that is provided to unborn. In the third heading of our research, the criminal protection that is provided to unborn is examined. Besides the articles 99 and 100 of the Turkish Criminal Code, which are about the crimes on termination of pregnancy, giving harm to unborn is also punished with aggravated forms of some other crimes. So when the unborn is killed, the actor of the crime is punished. However it is understood that when someone causes bodily injury of an unborn and that unborn is born with injury or being a disabled person because of that action, there is no crime that is regulated in Turkish Criminal Law for this situation.