What are the legal rights of a pregnant woman in the context of the unborn child?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Forliti (Guardian ad Litem) v. Woolley, 2003 BCSC 1082 (CanLII):
Where are these legal rights accruing from while the fetus is in utero? In Winnipeg Child and Family Services, McLachlin J. (as she was then) asserted at ¶ 27, that: Before birth the mother and unborn child are one in the sense that "[t]he 'life' of the fetus is intimately connected with, and cannot be regarded in isolation from, the life of the pregnant woman": Paton v. United Kingdom (1980), 3 E.H.R.R. 408 (Comm.), at p. 415, applied in Re F (in utero), supra. It is only after birth that the fetus assumes a separate personality. Accordingly, the law has always treated the mother and unborn child as one. [emphasis added]
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