Wrongful Birth....2.9 Million

My stepmother has a sister who has downs and her sister is almost 50. Their parents died over 10 years ago and so my stepmother has total responsibility for her sister.

SM had to quit work and has to have assistance for her sister.. It is not inexpensive.. My SM never had a child for this reason... She just knew she already would have the LIFETIME care of her sister.

Having a child with Downs is for the length of THEIR life.. Not everyone wants that responsibility..

No judging.. just the truth for some people.

I will tell you that the vast majority of people with Down's will never really understand like you and I the concept of not being wanted, even if someone does tell them. Only a small percentage of those with Down's have the intellect to understand. If you disagree with that, it's because you aren't actually close to anyone who has Down's.

From what I read in the article, it seems that the doctors didn't diagnose Down's after the baby was born. I understand how this happens. The ped believes the birth doctors that everything is normal. The parents keep saying something is wrong, and the ped ignores them. Finally after begging different doctors to do some real testing, somebody finally steps up and boom, there's the diagnosis.

Here's what I think. I think the parents were angry that their concerns were dismissed. I think that they wanted to sue and their attorney told them that the only way they could win was to use this argument. Whether or not they are justified in winning the suit and having money that no other Down's parents get to help raise their child, I don't want to comment on. But I do think that there is a possibility that they don't really feel that way about having had an abortion, especially this long after the baby was born, and I don't particularly think that any of us really know what was truly in their hearts. People have said much WORSE things to win lawsuits, in order to gain custody of their children, like accusing spouses of sexually abusing their kids, etc. We will NEVER know.

Dawn

A few thoughts.

1) Perfect example of why people who believe EVERYONE should keep EVERY PREGNANCY should also support EVERYONE having access to affordable medical care for life-long expensive conditions. Funny how they often don't see the connection though.

2) Will way more people who have false tests (which we are all warned about in advance) sue to be compensated now? More fuel for unaffordable system.

It's a very sad story. I hope the family finds peace and their daughter is loved.

oh..and 3) What is with people telling each other what type of posts they should post? Totally weird behavior. That's for the site to monitor. Don't like a question? Skip it!

Ugh. So typical. Lawsuits on one side, the argument of God's miracle on the other :(
I have a niece with Downs, and I love her very much. She just turned 21.
But the reality is...
HUGE medical bills (even if you have insurance) and a LIFETIME commitment. My niece will NEVER support herself, and she will need increasing and ongoing medical care as she gets older. She has already had open heart surgery in addition to too many other special procedures, testing and drugs/therapy to list here.
Luckily my BIL is in a position to provide the financial coverage, and my SIL is in a spiritual and emotional position to provide everything else.
Children need love, to be sure, but they also need medical care, and if they have special needs you better believe that can get into the millions of dollars, so yes, maybe these parents are just getting what they need to properly take care of their daughter.

Sometimes the "miracle of life" and "God's miracle" of a special needs child forces a parent to quit their job, suddenly have to get by on one salary, downsize the house or move as a result, basically go into financial ruin to care for the child. As Patty said, special needs kids are not for EVERYONE. That's why the parents chose to have the test done in the first place. It's not the hospital's fault (perhaps) that a false negative came of the test, but I can see the parent's side of this. You need to stop seeing this as a set of parents who are abortion-happy, and more as a set of parents who perhaps cannot manage what "God" has given them. Not everyone gleefully skips off and says, "Oh well, it's still a miraculous life and it's meant to be!!!" You really have no idea what other's lives are like until you have lived them. Try not to be so judgmental... you really never know when your own life might contain a situation on which others could easily judge you, but, in reality, when you are doing the best you can and making decisions for the best of YOUR family.

I was told wrong results from a lab. (They got patient files mixed.) I was told my son would have down syndrome. I do not personally believe in abortion, so that wasn't an option for me. I often think of the family that thought all the way until birth, that their son was healthy. I don't know how I would react to that scenario. I CAN say, that until you live THEIR life, get into THEIR body and head, and walk in THEIR shoes...I'm not going to speculate about lawsuits involving special needs babies and their parents.

Well, I have not read the article you posted, but I read a different article about it yesterday. These parents are suing because their doctor botched the CVS they had and then the lab failed to catch it. Apparently the doc removed maternal tissue for the CVS and the lab failed to notice, which they should have.
If this was not a case involving a "wrongful birth" but a wrongful death, in which a doctor botches a tumor biopsy and the person dies of cancer as the result, no one would get upset and everyone would think the doc should just own up to it.
Well, I don't see how this is any different other than the fact the "wrongful birth" sounds very inflammatory and gets everyone upset.

it strikes me wrong.

The tests are NOT 100% accurate. How sad for the child that her parents don't love her enough!!! Maybe they should put her up for adoption so she can be raised by parents who will love her unconditionally.

Sometimes I think the general public doesn't have enough information on this type if thing to form a real opinion. The lawsuit stories get people really worked up but often there are details that don't make it into the story. This one just seems sad as on the surface it seems like the parents are rejecting their kid but maybe the details are such that the hospital really needed to be held accountable.
Who knows without actually being in court.
Oh yeah, to the post "subject matter" police...Zip it Cupcake!

Hmmm, I guess Rick Santorums point was made.

I hope I don't know anyone that would sue just because a test was wrong.

In the end the only one that lost was this poor baby that wasn't wanted by her parents. Well maybe they will finally love this baby now that they have all this money. Makes me sick.

ETA: wow someone is grumpy, time to turn off the computer & go ni-ni.

I like your posts, keep'em coming and I can SKIP the ones I don't want to answer

Not everyone is cut out to handle special needs but they could have sought adoption if they weren't up to it. No test is 100% conclusive AND sometimes that test shows positive and the child is born without DS. Since abortion was not on the table for me and hubby and having the test doesn't change anything....we opted not to have the testing.

It strikes me that you are very concerned, and judgmental, of other's actions involving law suits.

We can't ever know the whole situation involved. We are not (most of us) lawyers. We have a judicial system in this country that makes these kinds of decision based on decades of legal precedent.

If this had happened to me, I may have sued. If I chose to have genetic tests done (and I did have an amnio), I expect the results to be reported to me accurately so that I could make the decision that was best for my family.

The ongoing costs of caring for a child/adult with Downs could be, depending on the level of disability, much higher than a child who does not have Downs. I had my child at age 41 and so would not be alive to care for a disabled adult child and would want to do everything I could to provide excellent care for him/her for the entirety of their life. If it took a lawsuit to do this, so be it. Another reason for lawsuits is to force organizations to change and improve their procedures so this type of mistake is less likely to happen again.

I think that having a child is always a gamble...you never really know what you are going to get. I don't believe that any test is 100% accurate. I can certainly understand their anguish though...to find out that their child has a lifelong disability after having a test and thinking that things are just fine. Of course they will have an incredible amount of extra expenses to take care of this child...I hope that that is what this is all about. I would also hope that their child never has the cognitive ability to understand that her parents sued the hospital because she was born....

Those tests are well know for their lack of accuracy. I'm surprised the lawsuit was successful. I hope this won't make doctors afraid to give the test!

I haven't read the answers. I live in Portland and have followed this story. I don't know what form of testing they did. However, one article said that when they did the test they recovered maternal tissue instead of fetal tissue. Is that amniocentesis?

When I first read the first article I was stunned. But as I've followed it, I think I understand why the parents would do this. It is expected that this child will always have to be cared for and will not be able to be on their own in adulthood. At four, if I remember correctly, she isn't able to talk or does so in single words. The family needs the money to care for their little girl, whom they dearly love. She lives with them. They're caring for her.

And the baby was tentatively diagnosed at the hospital shortly after birth.

As to those who take offense, I remind you that you don't know the whole story. Judge not, that you be not judged.

thats horrible! the afp test that scans for downs and such isnt 100% it says so in the paper work that even with regular levels your baby could still have downs syndrom. i think parents should have to sign a waiver or something. i could never imagine aborting a baby due to an illness like that.

this is going to sound absolutley awful but i really dont know whati would do.. i dont know if i would sue the hospital but honestly id be beyond upset that i was told the baby was perfectly healthy and it wasnt.. i hold my breath everytime the doctor calls me with blood test results hoping everythings normal..if i wouldve found out early on that my baby was going to have down syndrome i cant honestly say that i definaltye wouldve kept it ... like i said sounds horrible but i cant help the way i feel

I think it's pretty fair. I would have aborted if my tests had shown Down's or many other issues. I know people with Down's who are awesome, but you never know where they're going to fall on the scale. Since amnio results are supposed to be correct, if a hospital gave me the wrong ones, then yes, I would sue and expect a sum like this to cover care and treatment.

I feel very sad for that baby. To grow up knowing that 'had they known' you wouldn't be here.

I wonder what they will do with that money, if they get it. I assume the hospital will appeal. Will they set it aside for her care? Hire a nanny that will actually love and raise her?

I agree every child is a gamble.......When it comes to some things.

It is hard to really gauge if I think there actions were justified. I understand their frustration I guess. I think it borders law suite ridiculousness as well though. So it is really hard to say.

Yes now having a baby with downs will make their life a bit harder. But then you have to question their character. Because it is their child at this point.

you can be saddened that they had the bad luck of the draw with this one. But not wish they had aborted her at that point. My youngest has huge learning and behavior issues. There was a chance he could be born with issues because of the medication I took at high dose's because of an accident. But I was five months along at this point and it had not crossed my mind that those issues could be life changing for him and the family.

I live on.

You have to think the test came back negative at the time. Maybe there is a reason the baby came as she did. Maybe the parents are just too superficial(judgement on my parent)to see past the surface on this one. AND THAT IS HEARTBREAKING.

When you think the impact 2.9 million dollars really WONT have on what it is going to cost them to ''have'' the child....It is a drop in the bucket to what baby is worth. All they did was give themselves a guilty complex down the road...because they gave their babies life a price tag, wished it had been aborted and they had been able to move on. I wonder what they will get her for her sixteenth birthday if they got all this for her arrival. I have to say I hope she does not have the ability to retain feeling because if she ever understood the wishing her parents had...I would not blame her for taking off.

I think I am more bothered by the fact that they have a living daughter they are now saying they wished they had killed. And I am a pro choice person(I myself made this choice at the age of 19). I just think it is superficial to only want the perfect ones....and throw away the ones that are damaged. When the damaged ones are those who teach us compassion, patience and how beautiful the world can be through the eyes of total innocence....In this case this is what the couple was saying after the fact.

The parents may not have been ''wrong'' legally speaking. That is why they won in court. But morally speaking, parent to parent...I see major issues with the brain thought that went on......Having the tests, and learning of it early on...and then deciding.....With the right counseling and what not...I totally do not have issue with...........Having the tests, having the negative and then wishing death on the born.....ouch.

Never thought Liberal Ole' Libby would ever see the line on the Abortion matter! You found it for me!!

I can see how that happened. Special needs children are not for everyone to handle, if the test made a difference in their decision to keep the baby or not, then I understand the hospital's fault. My problem with the news is: no hospital would EVER guarantee 100% the test result, so how in the world was it possible for the baby's family to sue? It's strange, don't you think? Hospitals know better...

All I can say is I hope that their daughter never finds out how they really
feel about her. They should have given her up for adoption. Actually, there
is a group that places Downs children. So sad.

It strikes me as very sad.

I think it is sad that they said they would have aborted her if they had known. I understand their frustration completely but I see them holding their precious baby and feeling that in their hearts. It just makes me sad.

The most important thing I've learned after just 11 months of being a mother is that I cannot judge any other mother for their actions, as nobody knows what she's going through except for her.

..actually, I'd judge a mother that abused her children, etc, but other than that, how can we make that call unless we've been there ourselves? Just saying.