Neurolegal framework of protection and embryological foundations of the fundamental right to voluntary interruption of pregnancy in Colombia

Abstract

Based on an embryological and neuro-legal methodology, the purpose of this paper is to identify the biological foundations, by virtue of which a pregnant woman, regarding abortion, can invoke and exercise her fundamental reproductive right to the voluntary interruption of pregnancy. The central problem is that in the recent jurisprudence of the Colombian Constitutional Court, the unborn, although considered a human being during the gestational period, doesn't possess a legal personality until its birth and, therefore, doesn't have comprehensive legal protection. That is, the fetus doesn't have a fundamental rights, but rather constitutional values. Results: embryologically, the decriminalization of abortion in Colombia should have been set up until the twenty-first week and not until the twenty-fourth week of gestation; and from a neurolaw point of view, the pregnant woman has five fundamental neurorights that enhance her sexual and reproductive rights: consciousness, conscience, identity, autonomy and privacy.