Abstract

There is no uniform definition of a child in Polish law. The author cites the most commonly used definitions. At the same time she is of the opinion that from the legal point of view a child is a descendant of the parents – without a time limit, because consanguinity has no end. Parental authority is not a uniform term, either, and has not been defined in the Family and Guardianship Code. The author considers parental authority as parents’ attribute to care for, represent and manage a child’s estate. The Family and Guardianship Code does specify the upper limit of parental authority. It is a child’s coming of age. The Code does not specify the lower limit of parental authority. The author shows that parental authority starts upon inception, that is covers also nasciturus, i.e. a foetus in a mother’s womb. The author postulates that children should be raised apart from religious beliefs, which should be legally irrelevant, in accordance with Kant’s categorical imperative. Special attention in the article is given to the institution of nasciturus. In her opinion it does enjoy limited legal capacity both under natural and positive law. It also has a conditional capacity to acquire further civil rights upon and conditional on birth, which arises from positive law. As regards a child conceived by IVF it should be stressed that the form of conception should be legally irrelevant. Nasciturus’ right to life is associated with the problem of abortion. Abortion is to be treated as an acceptable exception to the rule of nasciturus’ right to life. A curator ventris is appointed to guard the future rights of the child and in light of the author’s theory concerning statutory representation of nasciturus’ parents it is an absolutely redundant institution.