4.3. The Rights of the Unborn Child

35. In coherence with these guidelines of juridical thought reaffirmed by the international community and its juridical system, we state that:

36. From the first moment of his existence through the fertilization of the ovule, a human being is endowed with his own innate, special dignity and enjoys the rights that correspond to him according to the stage of his development; ³⁸

37. From the beginning of his prenatal life, a human being is an individual who has the right to life and personal safety;

38. From the beginning of his life, a human being has the right to recognition of his juridical personality, with all the consequences derived from such recognition;

39. The unborn person is a "child" in the sense of, and with the attributes set down in the Convention on the Rights of the Child;

40. The unborn child has a right to legislation that guarantees its survival and development to the greatest degree possible; ³⁹

41. The concrete population planning policies or measures that include or imply threats to the survival or health of the unborn child should be considered contrary to the right to life and human dignity;

42. The unborn child has a right to legislation that protects it from any experimentation on its person, or from being subjected to medical procedures that do not have the protection or improvement of its health as their direct object; moreover, the cloning of humans must be prohibited, as well as any other procedure that threatens the dignity of the unborn child: "Life can never be downgraded to the level of a thing.⁴⁰