D
DL82
Guest
I read that in some UK hospitals 60% of the maternity ward’s budget goes on legal costs and payouts. Why? Because if doctors or midwifes make a mistake in a complicated delivery they can find themselves having to pay lifetime care costs for a disabled baby. I can only imagine that it must be even worse in America.
Do these kinds of cases make abortion more common? I’d imagine if I was a doctor looking at a complex pregnancy I’d start to think: “If I recommend abortion it’s problem solved but if I have to deliver this baby I could really screw it up and end up having to pay out millions in damages.”
What I find offensive about these kinds of cases is that the doctors are usually doing their best, and in most cases they are the only reason the baby is born alive at all, and often the only reason the mother survives too. It seems to suggest that a living baby with a disability is an unbearable burden that the medical system has to apologise for and carry the can for, whereas a dead baby is a minor inconvenience. I wonder if this is a cause of the rise in abortions?
On the other hand, could mothers who were inaccurately advised to have an abortion launch a Class-Action suit against hospitals, clinics, Planned Parenthood, etc? If you can sue for ‘not being told’ that smoking kills or that McDonalds is bad for you, then why wouldn’t the same work for abortion? Lifetime costs of being left childless would be pretty huge, would probably bankrupt PP, or at least take a big chunk out of their fighting fund. There must be lots of ways of reducing numbers of abortions besides the obvious political lobbying.
Do these kinds of cases make abortion more common? I’d imagine if I was a doctor looking at a complex pregnancy I’d start to think: “If I recommend abortion it’s problem solved but if I have to deliver this baby I could really screw it up and end up having to pay out millions in damages.”
What I find offensive about these kinds of cases is that the doctors are usually doing their best, and in most cases they are the only reason the baby is born alive at all, and often the only reason the mother survives too. It seems to suggest that a living baby with a disability is an unbearable burden that the medical system has to apologise for and carry the can for, whereas a dead baby is a minor inconvenience. I wonder if this is a cause of the rise in abortions?
On the other hand, could mothers who were inaccurately advised to have an abortion launch a Class-Action suit against hospitals, clinics, Planned Parenthood, etc? If you can sue for ‘not being told’ that smoking kills or that McDonalds is bad for you, then why wouldn’t the same work for abortion? Lifetime costs of being left childless would be pretty huge, would probably bankrupt PP, or at least take a big chunk out of their fighting fund. There must be lots of ways of reducing numbers of abortions besides the obvious political lobbying.