My latest frustration with my legal learning (torts in particular) is a wonderful cause of action called "wrongful life". Now most of you have heard of wrongful death. Wrongful death allows for money to be paid to a victim's family by the individual who caused a death.
In the wrongful life case, a doctor failed to properly diagnose a pregnant lady's illness. She gave birth to a child who suffered several physical and mental handicaps as a result of the woman's illness she had while pregnant. Yes this is a terribly tragic story. The child sues the doctor and claims "wrongful life"... Basically he claims his mother would have aborted him had she only known her baby would be born with these horrible birth defects, and that being aborted would be better than having lived a life so tortured by the physical and mental handicaps. ARE YOU KIDDING!?!?!?!?
I'm not going to jump into the abortion debate here, I'll save that for another fun blog, but I would like to discuss the absurdity of this claim.
For instance, I know a child who suffers from spina bifida. If you've never heard of this disease it's a horrible handicap where the spinal column never closes and many health affects are felt over the child's lifetime. In fact, many children with this disease do not live long because of their physical problems. From what I understand, spina bifida is minimized, if not eliminated by taking folic acid during pregnancy. The doctor failed to inform this Cole's mother of this fact and consequently her baby has led a life plagued by many medical problems. Anyone who knows Cole has been blessed by him. He is an amazing child who provides inspiration to anyone who meets him.
Now, I'm sure raising Cole has not been easy. (And honestly I do not know what his mother's feelings on abortion are.) However, I do not believe that either Cole or his mother would believe his life would have been better had he been aborted.
The court makes the statement that "negligent medical treatment deprives the parents of the option to terminate a pregnancy to avoid the birth of a defective child." DEFECTIVE CHILD???? What are we ordering here a new car and you got a lemon? This is a child... a person. You don't custom order your child. And what if your idea of a perfect child is one with a genius IQ and good looks for a modeling career then your child comes out with an average (or below average) IQ and a funny nose? Is this child now defective and you can trade them in for a better model? Would it have been better that the child was never born at all?
The real crux of the matter before the court is the doctor's negligence in failing to diagnose the mother's illness caused the child to be born handicap and that is why the court allows the cause of action. I realize I took my example to the extreme but the point is made that this is ridiculous.
In the end the court allowed recovery only for the extra medical expenses associated with the child's handicaps. I was glad the court did not allow for recovery for the "general damages" which would have placed a financial value on living an "impaired life" vs. a "normal life". After all, how do you know what a normal life is?
1 comment:
Wow! This is crazy to me. I agree, the doctor probably should have picked up this illness but who is to say that it is wrongful life here? Wow! I think I have heard of this case before, though...at least it sounds familiar. And...I have heard of spina bifida...it is a horrible condition. I knew a girl whose brother had it and she was so blessed to have him in her life...no way would they have viewed it "wrongful life". Also, yes, taking folic acid is imperative to prevent its development. From what I understand, women are encouraged to take a folic acid supplement when they start thinking about getting pregnant. The prenatal vitamins are apparently quite high in folic acid, too.
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