ed by the international community and its juridical system, we state that:
36. From the first moment of his existence through the fertilization of the ovule, a human being is endowed with his own innate, special dignity and enjoys the rights that correspond to him according to the stage of his development; 38
37. From the beginning of his prenatal life, a human being is an individual who has the right to life and personal safety;
38. From the beginning of his life, a human being has the right to recognition of his juridical personality, with all the consequences derived from such recognition;
39. The unborn person is a "child" in the sense of, and with the attributes set down in the Convention on the Rights of the Child;
40. The unborn child has a right to legislation that guarantees its survival and development to the greatest degree possible; 39
41. The concrete population planning policies or measures that include or imply threats to the survival or health of the unborn child should be considered contrary to the right to life and human dignity;
42. The unborn child has a right to legislation that protects it from any experimentation on its person, or from being subjected to medical procedures that do not have the protection or improvement of its health as their direct object; moreover, the cloning of humans must be prohibited, as well as any other procedure that threatens the dignity of the unborn child: "Life can never be downgraded to the level of a thing.40
4.4. Duties of the Family and the State Toward the Unborn Child
43. The family is the primary institution for the protection of children's rights. For this reason, the child's interest requires its conception to take place in marriage and through the specifically human act of conjugal union. "The gift of human life must be actualized in marriage through the specific and exclusive acts of husband and wife, in accordance with the laws inscribed in their persons and in their union".41
44. The bond between the mother and the conceived child, and the irreplaceable function of the father make it necessary for the unborn child to be welcomed into a family which assures, as far as possible and in accordance with natural law, the presence of its mother and its father. The father and the mother, as a couple, with the characteristics proper to them, procreate and raise the child. The child thus has the right to be welcomed, loved and recognized in a family. In this sense, the Convention on the Rights of the Child represents a very significant step forward which must be applied.
45. The unborn child has a right to be identified by its parents' name, to its heritage, and thus entitled to protection of its identity.42
46. The unborn child has a right to a standard of life sufficient for its full psycho-physical, spiritual, moral and social development, even in the event that its parents' marriage bond is broken.43
47. Parents have the primary responsibility of raising and educating their children in order to ensure their integral development and an adequate level of social, spiritual, moral, physical and mental well being in order to achieve this. For this purpose, both the laws and the services of the State are called on to cooperate in giving the family adequate support.44
48. In conformity with the principle of subsidiarity, only when the family is not in a position to protect the interests of the unborn child to a sufficient degree shall the State have the duty to provide special measures for its protection, in particular: assistance to the mother before and after delivery, the cura ventris, prenatal adoption and guardianship. Similarly, the State can only intervene in family life when the dignity of the child and its fundamental rights are seriously endangered, taking solely into consideration "the child's higher interest", without any form of discrimination.45
49. By reason of their particular condition and the abuses to which they are exposed, girls and young women require special provisions for their protection.
50. Like all handicapped persons, handicapped children a