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The issue of determining certain crimes against personal dignity and morals seen as permissible grounds for an induced abortion under the 1995 Law of Serbia on the procedures for inducing an abortion, has been treated in this article. The author points out that this Law differentiates between two groups of legally induced abortions. The first is the so-called freely induced abortion (when the fetus is less than ten weeks old). In such cases, it is enough for a pregnant woman to make a request for an abortion. In the second group (when the pregnancy is longer than ten weeks), an authorization of a doctor's or of an ethics committee, depending on the length of pregnancy, is required for a legally induced abortion. The authorization for an induced abortion may be given only on grounds provided by law. One of them is a case when the unwanted pregnancy is a result o f a crime against personal dignity and morals. The author points out to several problems arising in that respect. In particular, if the criminal proceedings last for an extended period of time, the request for abortion may become futile. This is the case, because the doctor's or the ethics committee may authorize an abortion only pursuant to a judgment of the criminal court. Only the court has jurisdiction to decide whether the crime was actually committed. Without the judgment of the criminal court, there is no crime, and thus, there is no permissible ground for a legal abortion. The second problem that arises out of this rule is the omitting of the crime of forceful inducement of a sexual intercourse provided in the Criminal Code, Article 104, from the list of permissible grounds of abortion, in spite o f the fact that this crime may also result in unwanted pregnancy. The author holds the view that the list of the so-called "sexual" crimes given in the Law (article 6 paragraph 2, item 3) should have been only exemplary and not inclusive. She sees the best solution to this problem in the broad interpretation of the cited provision. Moreover, the author proposes that the limits of the so-called freely induced abortion should be extended to twelve weeks of fetal maturity. Such rule exists in the laws of many European countries. The reason for this is that the period of ten weeks is very short, and often insufficient for the pregnancy to be even diagnosed, let alone decided by the woman to be terminated by abortion.

Crimes against personal dignity and morals serving as a permissible ground for an induced abortion