REIFICAREA PERSOANEI FIZICE ȘI GESTAȚIA PENTRU ALTUL

We are witnessing tremendous progress in the fields of biology and medicine, which consist the
possibility to take human cells, tissues and organs for the purpose of their transplantation into
another subject’s body, genetic engineering operations, medically assisted human procreation and
many other such revolutionary techniques. All of these have proven to be two-edged weapons: on
the one hand, they can be used to save lives or to help some couples who, under normal conditions,
cannot procreate to give birth to the much-desired children and, on the other hand, they can turn into
threats to the human genome or to the social cohesion.
It has become necessary for man himself to be the object of legal protection, and, at the same
time, a new category of things has emerged, namely the biological products of the human body and
the elements detached therefrom, which are intended to be used for therapeutic or research
purposes. Thus arose the problem of the legal qualification of these things, which also raised the
issue of the existence of a relationship between the subject of law and his body. The doctrinaires are
divided into two camps: one that considers that between the subject of law and his body, qualified as
a thing, there is a legal relationship of property and another that claims that the human body is the
person himself.
The qualification of the human body as a thing, the transformation into things of some of its
products and of some elements detached therefrom, as well as the possibility of capitalizing on some
personality rights, such as the right to voice and the right to image, are part of a process which was
called the reification of the person. It is a constantly evolving process which has already included the
controversial gestation for another as well.
The present study is devoted to the identification of the dangers generated by the qualification
of the human body as a thing, with special regard to the gestation for another.