Wrongful Birth?

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At the risk of being a jerk, I want to point out that babies themselves get switched sometimes -- very rare, but possible. Paperwork gets effed up, medical staff make mistakes both big and small (we had a case here in Alberta where a baby was accidently injected with industrial cleaner rather than medicine.) Admittedly extremely rare accidents, but not impossible.

 

I was switched at birth -- I'm positive of it. I am really the son of a loving and wealthy couple who owns land in Northern California and Hawaii. Instead I was taken home by a disfunctional couple who had little to their name.

If anyone can find my real parents, please let them know I'm still waiting for them to take me back....

 

You weren't born, you were hatched in a lab as part of a diabolical experiment gone wrong . . . . . . . Wait,that might have been me, ERR nevermind.

 

There is no such thing as wrongful birth and there is no wrong in bringing a child to the world. Any clumsy attempt at making a newborn child a tortfeasor must be opposed with all the force of a right mind.

 

My first time on this alley, please be gentle. Avoid cuts on the face, I gotta face my daughter tomorrow morning. Stab me in the back instead. Thank you.

Chev, I agree on the idealism part. But I'm also realist enough to know that idealism alone won't work. See how it went with communism.

 

Sir Rechet, an elegant entry into the alleys. Well stated.

Chev, for those of us who aren't in law school or employed in the field, what the <insert comical cussword of your choice> is a "tortfeasor"? As near as I can tell, it's a person who charges a fee for the enjoyment of a dessert, but that can't be right!

 

In law, charging somebody for a piece of cake isn't as unlikely as you'd think...

 

In that case, it would seem to be that the doctor is the one being made a tortfeasor, not the baby. It certainly seems reasonable in one sense to hold a doctor responsible for his mistakes (unless he makes it clear that he is NOT 100% sure and cannot be held responsible for any errors because the science / technology is not foolproof as of yet.)

 

In the direct sense, yes. In the sense of the message, no. It sends the message that a human person being born is a wrong act, which is unhuman to claim. The name of that "tort" is grammatically botched and doesn't match with existing names of torts. It sounds like something the child would "commit", not the doctor, even though the doctor would be the one to be sued.

If I were a judge and they brought me a doctor on charges for refusing to cooperate in an abortion even by giving information to use in pursuing or electing it (which I would also refuse to give, no matter how criminal or "wrong" an act the law would make it), I would free that man even if they were to shoot me behind my own courthouse.

There's the time when one's got to stand up for the ideals. That time is when they make it a "wrongful" act not to prevent a conceived human being from being born. And especially when they dehumanise a human baby with that kind of language.

 

Chev, I guess the major difference between us is how much one weighs the good of one against the good of many.

For example, while I know many people that would consider the examples at www.darwinawards.com as tragical accidents, I applaud them for succeeding in what they were trying. In other words, trying to improve the human gene pool by removing themselves from it.

To live is secondary to having a life worth living, in my humble opinion. While I'm aware that a disability isn't tantamous to having a miserable life, willfully imposing it on someone else when there's an option not to seems awfully cruel.

 

Chev, you know I oppose abortion. But if, as a doctor, you are asked a question like "does the amniotic fluid test* you conducted show/indicate that our baby will have Tay-Sachs Syndrome?" you have a responsibility to tell them the truth about that test. It would be immoral to lie. Now, as a doctor with a conscience, when they say "abort this baby, please" you have every right to tell them to go elsewhere's to get that abortion, but IMHO that's it -- you cannot lie about the test --THAT would be unethical.

In any event, I do not think it sends the message that the birth in and of itself is a wrong act. It sends the message that the doctor's mistake was a wrong act, one that deprived the parents of vital information.

As for you, Sir Rechet, I hear where you are coming from. I really do. But I think it's a dangerous road. A lot of disabled people lead fulfilling lives. I would think long and hard before deciding to abort a fetus or end a life on the basis that the life they would have will likely be difficult and painful. Every life has its share of difficulty and pain -- mine has, and I'm glad every day that I'm alive. God knows my mum could have aborted me -- I was an accident and at high risk of being 'differently abled' (I was her 6th child, 8th pregnancy, and she was 36 years old in 1973.)


*Note that I'm pulling this out of my butt, I don't know if it's a fluid test or a blood test or whatever, irrelevant in this case anyway.

 

Dangerous, yes, but have you considered why?

Humans aren't exactly good at knowing if an apparent "defect" will lead to miserable life or not before the fact. Only God is, but he doesn't tell. So the best we lowly humans can do, really, is to try to weigh the risk of miserable life against the non-reversible termination of a life that could have become good.

I get an uneasy feeling when people are ready for extreme deeds, sacrifices and being a general burden for the society JUST because "he might, possibly, given a whole lot of luck, have a feeble chance of having just *one* day without extreme pains before he dies". As in, putting the good of the society in the broad sense against the good of one is considered a no-no, regardless of the circumstances.

I just can't understand why.

 

Especially in the case of something like Tay Sachs, which is incurable, largely untreatable, and 100% fatal.

I agree with this as well. In fact, I do not understand how chev views it as somehow being the unborn child's fault. Perhaps the term "wrongful birth" was not well selected, but that's arguing a semantic point. It's the doctor who is being sued for his mistake (it's like a specific form of malpractice), not the child for being born.

 

There are few crueller things than the murder of an innocent child for the purpose of his mother's comfort of life.

And there is no one vs many here. It's always mother vs child.

To lie would be unethical. It would not be unethical to refuse to answer if you knew they were going to abort the child in case of a positive answer. The child is a human person with a right to life and that life is more important than a comparably minor duty to provide information. Generally you never owe the duty to disseminate information which you know is immediately going to be put to evil use.

And telling them to go elsewhere, possibly providing them with an address, is not an ethical option.

It sends the message that people need to respect other people's "abortion rights" to the point of cooperating by giving information.

Post-abortion syndrome, anyone? "Even" the woman who won Roe vs Wade has converted to Christianity and opposed abortion at some point. There's a reason why abortion supporters persecute (yes, persecute, not prosecute) pro-life protesters showing photographs of aborted foeti. Or even photographs showing a living foetus with its growing human features. It triggers conscience.

Hippocrates's oath? If you vow not to kill a foetus, you do not cooperate in it by giving information. Personally, I'd be shot before doing it.

Pro-life doctors are going to be forced out if things continue like this.

 

dmc: You should realize by now that such pain and suffering do not matter to the devout. Physical discomforts here are rewarded in the hereafter.

 

I agree completely. We aren't talking about something like Down's Syndrome, where the child will be mentally handicapped, but will likely live into his/her 50s. (people with Downs have notably shorter life spans than the general population but usually survive well into adulthood). Tay Sachs is a death sentence, and one where you don't go peacefully, but with considerable pain and suffering.

I never want to find out what it's like to lose a child, but I imagine in changes your life forever. I can easily see how it could cause the end of a marriage.

The courts tend to agree - as the parents who brought forth such a case 10 years ago won. And that wasn't even with a doctor deliberately misleading the parents - he just made a mistake.

 

Good riddance I say, if they're about to lie to the parents about the true state of the child they are not worthy of their licence and should find employment elsewhere.