[The current state of law as a mirror of social movements and currents]

The question of what movements and currents in society may have urged the legislator to grant to the life of the pre-implanted embryo complete legal protection, in obvious contradistinction to the total denial of the latter to a post-implantation foetus, when a pregnant woman is deem to be in a legally-recognised pregnancy-related conflict situation, is investigated. To the extent that it exacerbates the difficulties of sterile couples to have children, this state of affairs differs considerably from the legal situation of almost all other countries of the western world. It is dismaying to note the widespread lack of interest of the public regarding the question of how to bridge the inconsistencies of evaluation of the need for protection of human life before and after nidation. Arguments designed to explain this discrepancy in legal or ethical terms do not convince. Apart from the lessening impact of the role of women in reproduction, it is the awareness of the historic burden of national guilt created by the atrocities committed by the Third Reich that is said to account for the scrupulousness and backward as opposed to prospective orientation of large parts of German society. Sterile women and couples are those that suffer most on account of this situation and might ultimately be tempted to look for medical help in more liberal countries, should their wish to have children be thwarted in Germany for legal reasons.