Sono le donne soggetti morali? Autodeterminazione, responsabilità e competenza generativa a difesa della depenalizzazione dell’aborto

Starting with the legal regulation of abortion, this paper aims to reconstruct the path of legal recognition of female moral subjectivity, in order to establish
whether it is considered equivalent to that of a “full” legal subject, or whether female legal subjects are tacitly considered to fall into categories where legal recognition of moral subjectivity is partial, limited and subject to public scrutiny and control. The paper begins with a definition of the principle of self-determination and then provides a brief overview of the historical devaluation of female moral subjectivity within the legal system. This devaluation has resulted in the replacement of personal responsibility with public responsibility, even in the specific context of the relationship
between a pregnant woman and her foetus — the domain of her unique generative competence. This approach has had consequences that are still deeply rooted in positive law and its most recent developments.