Suing for wrongful birth????

[monstermansmum]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1175000/Couple-sue-NHS-1m-pre-birth-scan-failed-pick-sons-birth-def ects.html

I dont want another super race thread and please dont respond if you feel it would start one-but I wondered if you had read this? I dont want to impose my opinions and I realise that everyone else is entitled to their own thoughts and opinions but I was shocked that the parents of this 14yo child could feel so strongly that their child shouldnt have been born "despite being loved and admired".

god that's awful. Huge consequences for health trusts if they win too.

I recently read a Jodi Picoult book about this - I know it wasn't real! - but it really made you realise why someone might do this. It's called something like Handle With Care, and the parents in it sue for wrongful birth because they want their child to have the finance to be cared for properly. Saying they would have aborted is what they had to say to win the case, and it wasn't true, but they needed the money to be able to care for her properly and were willing to lie so that they could get the best for her that they could. So that book made me really think differently about these types of cases - it's the ultimate 'I'll do anything for my child but will have to lie and get judged and villified by the press for it' act in the book, and may be so in this case too.

Must admit that this is also how I read it -that their child needs millions in terms of care, and this is their best way of getting the money needed.

Yes, but no money makes everything so hard. A severely disabled child needs so much more than another child, and we all know all too well how hard we have to fight for every last thing, and most of us aren't asking for very much!

If J needed expensive equipment, and I couldn't afford it, or had to work to be able to afford it (when really I needed to be at home with that child - school only lasts for 12 years and children become adults), I would have to consider how I could get that money. If this is the case with this family, how can we judge them for doing what they feel is best to get what their child needs?

I can see that - but I think their chances of winning must be very low - because scans are just a screen and certainly aren't foolproof.

They have to say this as they are fighting for compensation ... I bet their hearts are breaking, but probably feel there is no other way of getting the money for his life long care. They are doing it for him, I'm sure.

I don't understand why it's taken them so long to make the claim .... maybe the extent and impact on their lives and quality of his is more evident now he's older

I guess they feel that the end justifies the means, and if their son isn't allowed to hear about it, who actually suffers from this case except the parents, and they may be doing it for him?

Maybe they're putting themselves and their honesty after their child - Riven, you say you couldn't honestly say that, and maybe they can't either, but maybe they feel their lie is justified if it gets their child what they need.

And they may love their child more than anything now, but might have felt differently when their child wasn't yet born and was a theoretical person who they hadn't met and didn't know, and I guess that their point is that they weren't given the chance to decide.

what are their chances of winning though?

as far as I remember they do tell you that scans aren't 100%

the mother claims the scan was carried through in a lighthearted manner- how can they ever prove that?

I wonder if they are doing this as it is the only way to get money for care.
as your child goes ito adult services it all changes. I mean how many charities help adults compared to children?

riven I couldn't say it either, not for all the money in the world.
(and yes cases take years 9 years and counting here)

I find that story quite shocking. They might be doing it for the money, they might nbe doing it for the injustice of it all, who knows. But to say they would have aborted? Surely that would mean they don't want their son?

Purely a different story, but DH was conceived 5 years after his mother had her tubed tied. Back in the day, she was actually the first person for this to happen to in the North East, and was told she should sue the hospital as they were to blame, she could have had thousands. But she never, because as much as she never wanted a third child, she would never admit to wanting to have DH aborted and not wanting him(which is what she would have had to do). She loves DH as much as she does her other two DC, and never regrets having him.

I agree, Riven. I think it makes it harder for people by giving them a false sense of security.

Met plenty of people in pregnancy who seemed to feel that they were protecting their babies by having the scans. As if it this was some sort of magic charm that would ward off evil. I was made to feel I was irresponsible and not doing the best for ds when I refused to have the amnio.

Well, he is probably going to be disabled- but not from anything that a scan would have picked up.

It also reinforces the idea that disabled people are an unacceptable burden on others.

I was very disturbed by the old-people's-home thread where people were saying blithely that I will top myself before I have to become dependent on others. (didn't help that we are currently busy packing up MILs home). So does that mean you will top yourself if you have an accident tomorrow and end up in a wheelchair? And if your next child is born disabled? Some people just don't think.

I think there will be huge implications if this couple wins.

But while I can potentially see the argument for why they might be doing this, the fact they say they would have aborted had they known makes me very uncomfortable, not least because it says in the artacle that the child has very severe mental disabilities, so I am therefore assuming that he does not have the capasity to understand what is going on? If the child's disabilities were only physical but still very severe, would it still be ok to admit that they would abort a child who is now 14 and has the capasity to understand the implications of that? If not, then why is it ok to say you would abort a child with severe ld's because he can't understand and therefore cannot be affected by that statement?

that's what I was feeling, wannabe, but couldn't put into words

I couldn't bring myself to do it