A woman whose six-month pregnancy was wrongly terminated by a doctor who mistook her for another patient is taking a test case to the European court of human rights this week which could threaten abortion rights across Europe.
The case, which could establish that foetuses have a right to life, is considered so important that a grand chamber of 17 judges at the Strasbourg court is hearing it. The grand chamber hears cases that raise a serious question of interpretation of the European convention on human rights or those where there is a risk of departing from existing case law.
The mix-up happened at a French hospital, but the implications of the case are causing alarm to pro-choice organisations throughout Europe and beyond.
Britain's Family Planning Association and the Centre for Reproductive Rights, in New York, have both filed written briefs with the court, arguing that giving an unborn child the right to life would conflict with the rights of women and with domestic laws under which the foetus is not treated as a person.
The case has been brought by Thi-Nho Vo, a 36-year-old French national of Vietnamese origin who lives in Bourg-en-Bresse, France. In 1991, when she was six months pregnant, she went to the Hotel-Dieu hospital in Lyons for a medical examination.
On the same day another patient, Thanh Van Vo, was due to have a coil removed at the same hospital.
The pregnant Mrs Vo could not speak French and was unable to communicate with the gynaecologist she saw, Francois Golfier. He mistook her for the other Mrs Vo and tried to remove the non-existent coil, piercing her amniotic sac and making a therapeutic abortion necessary.
The doctor was charged with unintentional homicide, the French equivalent of involuntary manslaughter, but acquitted by the Lyons criminal court. On appeal, he was convicted by the Lyons court of appeal, sentenced to a six-month suspended jail term, and fined 10,000 francs.
He appealed to the court of cassation, which reversed the court of appeal's judgment. The highest court ruled that the foetus was not a human being entitled to the protection of the criminal law, and therefore the doctor could not be guilty of homicide.
Mrs Vo took the case to Strasbourg. In a hearing on Wednesday, she will argue that an unborn child is protected by article 2 of the European convention on human rights, which guarantees the right to life. She says the state has an obligation under the convention to legislate to make the doctor's act a criminal offence.
The Family Planning Association fears that the judgment in Mrs Vo's case could invalidate abortion law in Britain and even affect the legality of the "morning after" pill, which prevents a fertilised egg from implanting in the uterus.
Anne Weyman, the association's chief executive, said the current law, under which a foetus is not considered a person with rights but a child born alive has the right to sue over injuries suffered in the womb, represented a "very satisfactory" compromise.
The Strasbourg court's rulings on human rights apply to the 45 member states of the Council of Europe. Since the Human Rights Act came into force in October 2000, British courts have had to take account of case law from Strasbourg.
The Centre for Reproductive Rights, dedicated to promoting women's rights worldwide, says in its brief: "The court is being asked to grant for the first time an unborn foetus the status of a person with rights under the European convention".
A ruling in favour of Mrs Vo, the centre says, "would render the abortion laws of most member states of the Council of Europe invalid". It argues that injury to a foetus should be regarded as an injury to the pregnant woman.
