1984 May/June issue Part 3

Can Birth Be Wrong?

The wildest science fiction cannot exceed in outrage some of the legal precedents that have been set in recent years. More than a year ago I read in a magazine (Advance, Spring 1983) about "wrongful birth" suits, in which parents sue a physician because their child was born as a result of practitioner negligence, for example a failed vasectomy, failed abortion (a "failed" abortion, don't forget, means one in which the child destined for the scrap heap happens to be born alive and kicking, so to speak), or failure by the physician to provide

parents with adequate contraceptive methods. There are also "wrongful life" suits in which the child sues the physician because he would have been better off not to be born at all. His very life is "wrongful." The child, in other words, had a right not to be born. How, exactly, does the court measure damages in the case of a healthy child, though there have been awards if there were defects. The only good news in this appalling  article was that in a wrongful birth case in Illinois in 1979 the court held that the birth of a healthy child is an esteemed right and not a compensable wrong. In England, at least up until the spring of 1983, the decision has been that entry into life should not be the basis for legal action. "0 Lord my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty," wrote the psalmist (131:1), "I do not busy myself with great matters or things to marvelous for me." I am afraid we tamper far too much with the mysteries of life and death, instead of leaving them to Him who holds the

keys.