Does advance techology bring out the worst in us....results show it does

12:56 PM

Update: The jury awarded the parents $4.5MM. They were asking for $9MM.

From Natl Right to Life

“I hope when little Bryan grows up he never Googles himself or his parents. I can’t imagine the horror when he reads that his parents wish they would have killed him. I wonder how quickly he will grasp that his parents think his life, since he has disabilities, isn’t worth living.  I wonder if that jury considered how the disabled community would feel if they knew that a jury awarded these parents millions because they missed the opportunity to abort their disabled son.”

This case in FL is that is still being decided as I write. It is of a child born with no arms and one leg. The couple is suing for $9MM for pain but they are not asking for any $$ for their suffering...I suppose wanting to sound noble.

No the dr. did nothing wrong in his care. The pbl is the ultra sound did not detect these issues and they did not have the opportunity to kill their son Bryan who is now 3 and described as a happy toddler. It makes me mad to read about this case. They were told that tests showed a slight possibility of their child having Down's Syndrome and offered an amniocentesis to confirm but they turned that down due to the slight risk of miscarriage but hey....had they known this they say he would have chosen abortion.  If I were the defense atty. I would bring in Nick  Vujicic, an inspirational speaker and advocate for the disabled who has no arms  or legs and just a "chicken wing" for one leg.

In another article , we read about a couple in the UK suing  the NHS Trust ( their version of universal healthcare) for wrongful birth. Yes, birth!!  The 20 week ultrasound failed to pick up that the baby had brain abnormalities which led to him being retarded with physical difficulties. They complain that the ultrasound technician was busy trying to get the baby to face the right direction for a good souvenir shot. While claiming to love their child the parents who underwent fertility  treatments to conceive state they would have aborted had they realized the boy had problems.

"Mr Glancy said the boy is well cared for by his parents and is a much-loved and cherished part of their family"

Really! But they would have killed him had they known about the disabilities!

The next article from 2010 was about a Baltimore couple  who sued the radiologist for $20MM in a wrongful birth suit. In this unusual case the first ultrasound showing the abnormalities  was sent to the wrong dr. When the  couple's dr. called to find out where the ultrasound  were was he was told the results were normal. When the later ultrasound showed the correct results, the baby was delivered prematurely and received medical treatment.  The article did not indicate what disabilities remain although the report indicates that the hole in his heart was surgically repaired. But here is the kicker....

" Had they known at the time they did the sonogram,” Snyder said, “the family would have made the difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy.”

Just google wrongful birth suits and your page will fill up with actual cases of radiologists and OB/Gyn's being sued for wrongful birth when the children don't come out perfect. Amazing! Some states have even banned wrongful birth suits.

"Patients who had disabled children in the past didn't think of suing the doctor. . . . But as technology has grown, some women think that their child's disability is someone ease's fault,"

But the reason they are suing is  that they did not get a chance to abort them and now have to care for their children.

"A mounting number of obstetrician/gynecologists are being sued by patients who say they would have had abortions if prenatal tests had detected fetal abnormalities.

"This is directly contrary to our national and state policies promoting the lives and livelihoods of people with disabilities," said Clark Forsythe, president of Chicago-based Americans United for Life. "What we're dealing with here is the promotion of eugenics as a birth policy whereby doctors are sued for not weeding out the 'unfit."

Sometimes technology can bring out the worst in us.... 

Photo: from www.lifewithoutlimbs.org