Mother Awarded $520,000 in Child Support from Doctor for Botched Abortion
Small items of news often tell us more about the zeitgeist than the greatest events of the day. The British Medical Journal for June 9 reported that a Spanish gynecologist in Majorca had been ordered by a court to pay $520,000 in child support for a child who was born after his attempt to abort it at the mother’s request failed. In addition, the gynecologist was ordered to pay the mother $190,000 to compensate her for the distress and disruption she suffered from the continued pregnancy and the birth of the child (though she is reported now to be very happy with him, and is pleased that he was born).
No doubt the failed abortion was the result of woeful medical negligence or incompetence, or both; and it is also likely that the mother was truly distressed when she discovered that she was still with child when she thought that an abortion had been successfully carried out. She had wanted to hide the fact that she was pregnant from her parents and was not able to do so; and apparently she had to give up her job because she was pregnant. But there is nevertheless still something deeply perverse about the judgement. No one to whom I have mentioned it has failed immediately to be disturbed by it.
The judge said that the birth “implied an unchangeable modification of the family structure, personal autonomy, and personal development” of the mother. This is strangely bureaucratic language to have used, langue de bois in fact, that makes of human life nothing but a curriculum vitae for a transcendental Department of Human Resources. Everything that happens is but an effect upon one’s personal development.
Future economic historians, if there are any, will be interested in the judge’s assumption, upon which he based his calculations of the amount the gynecologist should pay, that the mother would have to support the child until he was 25 years old: an understandable or realistic assumption, perhaps, in view of the fact that 50 percent of 25 year olds in Spain are now unemployed.
What is perhaps most significant about the way in which the whole affair was reported, however, was the complete absence from the equation of the father of the child. He didn’t come into it at all.
On the judge’s ruling, the failed abortionist was not only more responsible, but infinitely more responsible, for the child’s maintenance than his father, since the latter was not held to be responsible for it at all. He was, as literary theorists might put it, written out of the narrative altogether, as if the child had been born of virgin birth. Fathers do not count.
Of course, every child now has an inalienable right to be told the truth about its background. When the boy is old enough, surely he will have to be told that his comfortable upbringing is thanks to payments from the gynecologist who failed to abort him as his mother originally wished. Then, if he does not enjoy his life, he will be able to sue his mother for wrongfully having brought him into the world. After all, for every woe there must be an equal and opposite legal remedy.
Not even for a half million dollars, would I risk my kid finding out that I tried to abort him.
See the movie “October Baby”. What you would not do for money, is done and the baby must ask why.
I have no sympathy for an abortionist, so I won’t take issue with the award even though “wrongful birth” is insane.
By “‘wrongful birth’ is insane,” I meant the idea that such a thing as “wrongful birth” exists is insane.
Obama thinks there is such a thing as “wrongful birth”.
Didn’t he refer to a baby as “punishment” for the mother?
He calls his own grandchildren punishment. Obama can be absolutely counted on the say and do the precisely wrong thing.
Modern Western Europe; how utterly depressing. I suppose another judge might have turned a blind eye had the mother, following the birth, smashed the infants’ head against a wall and deposited it in a dumpster. How far Europian culture has progressed. And you wonder why Islam is reconquering the continent?
This is by no means exclusively a European problem. American “enlightened” opinion is no better. And did not Australia just bestow one of their highest civilian honors on Peter Singer, the advocate of infanticide?
We are talking about the moral decadence of Western civilization as a whole, and it does us no good to pretend that the disease is confined to the Old Continent.
It isn’t the legal standard here to be awarded damages for the birth of a healthy baby, however. American courts have traditionally held that such children, even if unintended, are a net benefit to the parents. The only “wrongful birth” cases that prevail have to do with undiagnosed birth defects, and even those are rare enough to make the news.
Carla,
If you are American then you live in the most litigious nation on the face of the planet. For many of your fellow citizens suing their doctors has become a national sport. I suggest you conduct some research on the heterogeneous nature of western European countries. It is foolish to see anomalous legal decisions in a single country as representative of the continent as a whole. It is also intellectually lazy.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
1. Reprehensible “mother,” who’s desire is to kill her child.
2. Reprehensible Doctor who disgraces his profession by agreeing to do such.
3. Said Doctor is unskilled enough to effectively kill an unborn child – when all Doctors have the requisite knowledge to accomplish this.
4. One reprehensible scumbag sues the other for not only doing his job improperly, but for being forced to address her proper responsibility….and wins. Neither are tried for murder or attempted murder; although seemingly anywhere in the Eurozone these days, the wrong turn of phrase can see you jailed or fined.
@ Dr. Scott #4 –
Perfectly stated.
“Everything that happens is but an effect upon one’s personal development.”
Seems like we can’t be “bothered” by children anymore. Which probably explains the abysmal birth rate and rapidly declining demographics in Europe. Kids are too much of an expense and too much of a bother to the Europeans. And it’s not because the Europeans are poor. Their nations have had some of the best economies and probably the best social welfare benefits in the world for roughly 60 years now. They’ve had plenty of time and money to have healthy populations filled with kids. Yet their population growth has been horrific for about 30 years now and they will start paying for this very soon as the current generation of adults starts to retire and there are fewer and fewer younger adults to support them. Another added “benefit” to this selfishness has been the explosion of immigration into Europe by Muslims, Asians, and black Africans. All of these new Europeans are finding it very hard (if not impossible) to assimilate into European culture (especially the Muslims), creating deep clutural divisions within many countries in Europe.
I don’t know if the Europeans can turn this demographic disaster around now. But I do know that selfish actions have consequences, and three decades of focusing on “the good life” in Europe has almost destroyed their countries. Cheers!
Slate.com is running a series of articles right now on “Why I decided not to have kids and how Happy I am about it.” It is really depressing. One woman referred to children as “alien parasites” and pregnancy as an “unnatural state.”
actually, this is good news. Because those who hold that set of values are not WORTHY to breed, and, when they manage to in spite of that fact, do seldomly. That means their “brain pool” is undergoing a process of natural selection…. survival of the fittest is at work here. Funny how that works…. but this ilk never fail to discount Darwin’s SECOND aspect of his theory of the origin of the species. It is this second part that IS true… environmental pressures that reduce the survival rate of certain characteristics tend toward the loss of those characteristics from the population. These people aren’t fit to survive and breed… it is their very unsuitability that presses against their propagation. Sooner or later, they will be sxtinct, or nearly so. And that will be a good thing.
Yes, it is good news. Statistically, it is likely that the 2000 Presidential election was determined because of the greater tendency of Florida Dems to abort their babies as compared to Florida Republicans.
That’s why the changing racial composition of the electorate hasn’t resulted in a “permanent Democratic majority”. Across all ethnicities, liberals have fewer children.
Karma would be that this child someday finds out what his mother tried to do to him. I wonder how “good” that $520,000 + $190,000 will seem to her then.
Better than not having it when he finds out. Secrets have a way of coming out.
I saw the item about the Netroots conference (?) where some woman asked those who have had an abortion to stand. Afterwards she led the applause celebrating that these women had killed their unborn child.
We are witnessing within the Democratic party and the liberal/leftists in Europe the creation of a death cult. they might as well become muslims and go live in Gaza strip, West Bank, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, or the other countries that are or will be run by the same death cults.
@ David W. #7 -
I had not heard about this. How hideous! It’s like a collective insanity has overtaken this world.
I’m not surprised. Scripture says in the end times it will be like the days of Noah. A time so wicked that God himself regretted making mankind.
They’re eradicating their future numbers and then wonder why there aren’t as many Democrats in certain areas of the country anymore. This is Margaret Sangar’s eugenics backfiring on the Left big time.
i too have had an abortion, but it has haunted me every day since i did some 30+ yrs later. i am now a born again believer in GOD THE FATHER, GOD THE SON, and GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE ONE TRUE LIVING GOD. HE has given me the Gift of EVERLASTING Life and The Promise that i will see my children in heaven. Forgiven and set Free! =) abortion in my world = shame.
i could choose to sin, but i could not choose my consequences, i choose to walk w/my SAVIOR and cast my burdens on HIM~
i live daily w/the consequences of my sins~ the girl should be required to do the same and the judicial system should butt out, however, we all know the judicial system will continue to wax worse and worse this my friends is simply the beginning of the end….read Revelation~ against ALL odds believers win =)
In Spain, same-sex couples can have more than two parents listed on a birth certificate. Last I heard, all birth certificates listed parents as A, B and C rather than as “Mother” and “Father”. So as not to discriminate.
It is not all that surprising to me that the concept of “fatherhood” is foreign to the legal system there. Hard to make a case that young men who impregnate young women should feel a moral responsibility for their children if they had had no intention to become a parental unit when they had sex. Given the terrible problems which occur in our country because of social policies which discourage young men from accepting the responsibilities of raising their biological children, this case should be cautionary for Americans.
Just wait for the social upheaval that will come in the next 20 years. We have 90% of boys spending their time playing violent video games (not a problem in moderation), looking at porn, experiencing easy sex, having themselves portrayed in an inferior light in almost all media forms. Go look at colleges, for many it’s a 60:40 ratio of women to men and getting worse.
And yet it is the United States that has the highest rate of single parenthood in the world.
Isn’t there such a thing in the US?
Wrongful birth = life unworthy of life.
That’s the Nazi term, and I don’t want to hear about Godwin. This is the real thing.
A wrongful birth suit is a step down that road. I don’t care if that doctor is a mass muderer; an attempt to stop some rapacious developers got us the “snail darter”. Bad cases make bad law, and the precedent is chilling.
No, these cases don’t happen here. The wrongful birth cases you hear about in the US are “failure to diagnose” birth defects, and the parents allege they’d have terminated the pregnancy if they’d known of such problems. Which is bad enough, but fortunately even those are pretty rare.
Eugenics was practised in the US long before Nazi Germany came into being.
What a disturbing. If nothing else, even after the failed abortion, if the mother was not ready for a child, why didn’t she give him up for adoption? There are so many couples who desperately wish to have a family!
Now this child will one day learn that his mother not only didn’t want him, but actively attempted to murder him, his doctor failed to murder him and instead was forced to pay money for his incompetence, and who knows about his father!
What kind of recipe is that for mental well being? Poor innocent, helpless child.
That said, every life is precious. Who knows what his life will bring? Great good can come out of even the most awful circumstances.
Probably the Grandparents, in a country with one grandchild per two grandparents they probably insisted.
Part of the answer is, the leftists have done everything they can to make adoption expensive, difficult, and uncertain.
Well, this is both a bad thing and a good one. The good came for the child’s survival, the bad, well, they will surely be more careful in destroying these precious baby’s now. I’m sure these butchers don’t want the same happening to them and will make well sure that these baby’s don’t survive?
You make a big deal about the father’s responsibility. When the mother proceeded with the procedure, that ultimately failed, the father’s responsibility ended. Since we know nothing of him, we don’t even know if he knew she was pregnant, or that she had decided on an abortion. As for the child, he’s alive and that’s a big deal. What are the probabilities?
It is interesting how close to the surface the human beast is. At one time in my life I could not understand how Germans were so willing to go along with Adolf and crew. Since september 2001 it is very easy to understand. Mankind as it is the strongest statement there is, against the theory of evolution.
It was an privately-paid for medical procedure and they botched it, badly. As the judge observed, the doctor barely glanced at the subsequent scan and misread it completely, leaving a pregnant woman with no idea what would happen next – a healthy baby she didn’t believe she could support? An unhealthy baby thanks to a botched procedure? Stillborn? Birth defects? The liability is obvious.
If this was any other medical procedure, I think folks here would be applauding the decision, if not necessarily the size of the payout (which I agree is very large, but perhaps a punitive result is what the judge was aiming for – we are, after all, talking about a company that terminates pregnancies for profit, in a conservative catholic country)
Yes, the fact that we’re talking about a baby is awkward. And yes, the mother is going to have some explaining to do when kiddy starts figuring out the ramifications. But that’s one medical facility that seriously needed to up its game. Reading a frikkin ultrasound … is it too much to ask?
And I think pro-life advocates everywhere should be secretly quite happy about this – it makes running an abortion facility in europe that little bit more expensive.
Spain is not a conservative Catholic country anymore, Matthew. The fortunes of the Catholic Church in Spain have been deeply affected by politics over the centuries. Though the majority may be nominally Catholic, most are not particularly devout. Government policies are now often very inconsistent with popular support of Catholic theology. Immigrants from Latin America tend to be more religious than native Spaniards.
Well, if the European Central Bank continues to bail out nations in trouble with fiat money, I think %520,000 will be barely enough to keep that child in necessities.
How about this: the lawsuit money goes into a trust fund for the child, and is transferred to the child’s name upon attaining the age of majority.
Prolife, here. Having said that, at least Spain understands that if the woman is holding all the cards there is no logic in pretending that she doesn’t.
In this country we try to eat our cake and have it. If a woman’s “choice” is sacrosanct, then it follows that the man has ZERO responsibility for any child
born out of wedlock. Paternal obligations are a contradiction under such circumstances and someday the law will reflect that reality. Get ready, ladies.
too bad our kool kenyan wasn’t there to help. as a senator he once woke up just in time to vote (alone) to end the lives of children of failed abortions.
any bets that this woman won’t soon be poor again and calling upon the father to ‘man up’? and of course we all know which goddesses the courts serve. probably order back c.s. w/ much intere$t to be paid to the state, or go to jail. nuttunu.
So a woman conceives a child and decides to have an abortion (the father having no rights about this decision) and when that fails, and she is ‘burdened’ with a child, she must naturally get a huge settlement to pay for this unexpected offspring. And your question is – why it came from the poor abortion doctor, and not the father? Howabout the woman, whose choice it was, just pays for her offspring herself, instead of having the expectation that if she wanders through the court system she can find someone, someone, to pay the piper after she has done her dancing?