Future Persons and Legal Persons: The Problematic Representation of the Future Child in the Regulation of Reproduction

Lisette Ten Haaf
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Lisette Ten Haaf: Department of Legal Theory and Legal History, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, Amsterdam 1081 HV, The Netherlands

Laws, 2016, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Increasingly, the law has been paying attention to the future child and the prevention of preconceptual harms. Regulation on procreation often appeals to the future child’s interests in order to justify the prevention of the child’s existence. However, besides bioethical critique, there is also a legal-theoretical problem that has been neglected so far. This article argues that the future child whose existence is prevented by an appeal to its own interests does not fit in the “regular” concept of law’s subject: the legal person. This creates two representation problems: First, the law lacks the proper vocabulary to address and represent this non-existent entity. Second, the appeal to its own interests as a justification of the prevention of the child’s existence creates a paradox, as the future child is treated as a subject and a non-subject at the same time. These two representation problems complicate the way law can “deal with” this singular entity. Since the vocabulary of the legal person is not equipped to articulate the future child, this article argues that further research is needed to understand what the future child is and how it functions in law.

Keywords: future child; preconceptual harm; legal person; non-existence; regulation of reproduction; representation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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