The Extent of Criminal Responsibility Arising from Harming the Fetus in the Jordanian Penal Legislation

(دراسة استشرافية تحليلية)

Abstract

The issue of protecting the fetus inside the mother’s uterus raises many questions about the adequacy of criminal legislative texts in providing penal protection for it during its resting period in its mother’s uterus from conception to the end of pregnancy. Although the Jordanian criminal legislator in the Penal Code has surrounded the fetus with criminal protection, the study views this protection incomplete, as it was limited to the assault that takes place on the existence of the fetus، which is represented by the crime of intentional abortion only. As for other forms of assault - other than abortion - on the fetus and at any stage of its development and formation during pregnancy, the punitive legal texts are limited to protecting the fetus at this stage of its life, which makes us face a legislative vacuum that needs intervention by the Jordanian legislator to fill this legislative gap.