It's a wonderful, wrongful, life. Wait..what?
A Palm Beach County jury has awarded $4.5 million to couple Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana in an unusual “wrongful life” lawsuit. Their child Bryan was born with only one limb, a leg, and their lawsuit on his behalf alleged that Dr. Marie Morel and OB/GYN Specialists of the Palm Beaches Hospital botched an ultra-sound procedure that should have detected the abnormality.If it had accurately told them what Bryan would be like, they argued, they would have had him aborted.
The jury-awarded damages will cover prostheses, wheelchairs, operations, attendants and other needs it is assumed that Bryan will have during his estimated 70-year life. “It will give piece of mind to these people that no matter what happens to them, their son will be all right,” Mejia’s attorney told the jury.
The legal issues are interesting; the ethical issues more so.
The couple rejected amniocentesis, which might have revealed the abnormalities, even after being told that there was a small chance that their child would be born with Down Syndrome, because they were also informed that there was a 1 in 500 chance that removing amniotic fluid for testing would cause a miscarriage. The defense argued that this sequence of events proved that they accepted the possibility that their child would have a disability. During her pregnancy, Ms. Mejia underwent seven ultrasounds after signing paperwork acknowledging that the findings did not constitute a guarantee that her baby would be normal. None of the ultrasounds detected the rare deformity.
Ethically, the lawsuit itself is perplexing. The suit is on behalf of the child, arguing that, in essence, he is worse off now than if he had never been born, and if the hospital technicians had done their jobs properly, he wouldn’t have been—his parents would have had his life and development terminated in his mother’s womb. The problem is that Bryan doesn’t wish he wasn’t born; nor would you or I in the same circumstances. Many children born with disabilities like his or worse live happy and productive lives. The lawsuit itself is logically something of a paradox: if the hospital is responsible for him being born with a leg and no other limbs, it is also responsible for him being born at all. If he were old enough to weigh the two (Bryan is three years old), would he curse the hospital, or thank it? I know my choice: I’d take one leg and some nifty prostheses over non-existence. Thank you, Dr. Morel, for the only life I could have. Those botched tests? No big deal.
To me, the lawsuit smacks of likely dishonesty. The hospital is really being sued for the costs the parents will incur caring for the child, but that complaint is harder to sell to a jury than “wrongful life.” It isn’t Bryan who wishes he had never been born, and indeed it is likely that his parents don’t wish he had never been born, now that they have him and love him. They just would have stopped him from being born, they say, if they had the correct information from the testing…and want all the money they would have saved by doing so.
So let’s get this straight, shall we? Remember, Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana did not argue that the hospital caused the deformity. The couple is getting millions to compensate them for not being able to make a fatal, though thrifty, decision that the child, the mother and the father are currently glad they didn’t make. The jury rewarded them, and penalized the hospital, because the parents were robbed of the opportunity to make that decision, which they say they would have taken, even though taking it would have deprived Bryan of a life he is now glad he has, and them of a son they now cherish.
Does that make sense to you?
Ethics Alarms 
Let me see if I have this straight. The parents of the now 3-year-old profess to love him, but say they would have aborted him if they had known in advance that he wasn’t perfect? Who are these people? They rejected amniocentesis, which would likely have revealed the deformity, presumably based on the fact that there was a 1 in 500 chance that it could cause a miscarriage. This loving concern would, however, have translated in an abortion if the amnio had found the problem? What exactly is their standing here?
Perhaps the hospital has some legal responsibility, though their rejection of all appropriate testing should carry some weight.
All in all, I pity their son. Even if he doesn’t get it now, he will some day, and will know that his parents would have killed him in the womb if they had had the chance to know he wasn’t “perfect.” There has to be a lot of therapy in his future.
And the cost of health care in this country just went up for all of us . . . again.
–Dwayne
You WIN!! I was wondering who would be the first to make that observation….and wondering whether someone would make your comment first, or the less tasteful but funnier, “The parents don’t have a leg to stand on.”
You realize this was a post supporting the hypothetical abortion, right? The only other way this case doesn’t increase the price of healthcare is if the family has a few million lying around that they would pay out of pocket.
I don’t think so. The point of the post is that the medmal system just made the hospital shell out millions that it shouldn’t have had to, and the costs will be passed on in higher costs.
You are right, of course—abortion is the cheapest solution. They could save a lot by just drowning the kid now, in fact—he can’t be much of a swimmer.
Would they get to keep the $4.5mil?
no its the childs money the money is in no way intended for hurt and suffering it is for the Bryans many prosthetic’s and for his future operations and wheelchair.
If the hospital hadn’t shelled out the millions, then most of the cost would have been moved to other healthcare providers. If it’s not pro-abortion, then it’s a misleading cheapshot that shouldn’t be celebrated.
If he’s otherwise healthy, I very much doubt that Bryan’s care will really amount to 4 million in medical costs alone.It’s certainly not a cheap shot. At this point, it’s impossible to say what the costs will be.If he learns to hop like a fiend, type with his nose and otherwise excel, as some with such disabilities have,…or join Circ de Soleil, he might even end up ahead in the game. You never know,
How about the many prosthetics this child will have to have as well as treatment and therapy. As he grows the child will need to replace 3 prosthetics many times. $4.5 million is nothing!
You realize this was a post supporting the hypothetical abortion, right?
No it wasn’t. It was in support of the-parents-shouldn’t-have-sued-in-the-first-place and dealt with their child’s disabilities the way every other parent does: using their own health insurance.
Health care already costs and arm and a leg, and in this baby’s future it will cost even more.
–Dwayne
Side note: I myself was born with two serious birth defects, one life-threatening (which was corrected by surgery while still an infant) and one that I still live with. For the record, my parents did NOT sue the hospital, and I AM glad they didn’t abort me.
I agree that the parents should have used their own insurance, but you didn’t make that case. If we transfer the cost from the hospital to the parents’ insurance, the cost is still there and the cost of healthcare still goes up.
I made the point I intended to make (anti-lawsuit) with a single short sentence. Brevity is the soul of wit.
And the costs are for two different things. Having the hospital pay increases the cost of health care, while having the insurance company pay increases the cost of health care coverage.
Plus the new costs to the insurance company, absent a lawsuit, do not include the attorney fees, court costs, increased business and malpractice insurance premiums, new PR costs for the hospital, etc.
–Dwayne
Too late for that one, but I’d certainly say they went out on a limb.
I’m ashamed of you.
I’ve had a bajillion u/s on the baby I’m carrying right now, and I’m trying to figure out how SEVEN of them failed to see there were no other limbs and just ONE leg. At the 20-week, usually where they can tell gender and do all sorts of organ and other studies to rule out abnormalities, it sounds like they had to have more than 1? Seems like perhaps there’s something weird there, but again, they don’t say they can catch EVERYTHING on sonogram, they just get some ideas, and if they think something’s up, they encourage further testing, depending on what they suspect.
I also declined an amnio, BUT, I thought that legally, I don’t have a leg to stand on, since by declining that test, there are a HOST of things I know I won’t know this kid could have. I guess this strikes me as especially strange because they waited til he was 3 to say they didn’t want him born at all. Did they just NOW figure out that disability translates into extra cost? DUH. If I were on the jury, I’d want them to have to give up parental rights to this kid, since they think he shouldn’t have been born. Let someone who cares about him more adopt him. Sounds like he’d be better off. What a-holes for parents the poor guy has. Therapy for the mental aspects isn’t part of the jury award, it seems.
The law suit has been going on a while. I’m sure it took some time for a lawyer to come up with the theory of recovery.
The situation is rife with irony—those new parents you propose won’t have 4.9 mil to spend on the kid. How much will a child blame his parents for coming up with a theory that makes him rich, especially if they tell him “we didn’t mean it!”
And you know, maybe they didn’t!
Cases tend to take a while as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if the parents had tried to negotiate with the hospital, and only filed when the statute of limitations was running out.
I forgot how slowly the legal process moves. It seems that now when you decline a test like an amnio, there will be paperwork to sign- so you have no rights to sue later. Yet another case of the lowest common denominator making it harder for the rest of the world.
Why should you be able to Sue someone else for the health of your child being possibly less than perfect when it IS Your fault, due to poor diet choices, excessive pharmaceuticals or toxins YOU digest during your Life to include PRIOR to pregnancy as Life choices of both parents affect offspring, and other Genetic reasons why people are born with ‘differences’ which are known as ‘abnormalities and disabilities’. People CHOOSE themselves to take prescriptions and drink, smoke, live in a polluted area or not, in addition to many other BAD health risks… why Sue for what you are to Blame for? I may NOT be Every lawyers Best Friend, right?
They didn’t sue under the guise that the hospital is reponsible for the deformities. They sued based on the notion that it was negligence/malpractice for the hospital to not have noticed and informed them of the deformities.
“And you know, maybe they didn’t!”
How does that jibe then, with swearing to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” in the various legal proceedings???
–Dwayne
There was some discussion here about the cost of health care going up and the cost of health care coverage going up. In that vane, I share the following:
http://www.9news.com/news/investigative/219104/207/Company-makes-millions-adjusting-patients-bills
so another words the parents regret having this child and think that they will hold everyone else responsaible for their choice. they had signed papers stating that the child might have concerns. so I believe it was a choice they made and can not hold anybody liable for their choices.