Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping!
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Posted on 03/15/2006 9:38:05 PM PST by Dan Middleton
A bill banning wrongful-birth lawsuits and another measure allowing judges to send violent sex offenders into mental institutions when their prison terms are up both passed the Ohio House yesterday.
Ten days after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that parents of children with birth defects can sue doctors for failing to identify the abnormalities during pregnancy, the House approved a bill that would ban such lawsuits. The bill now goes to Gov. Bob Taft, who is expected to sign it.
The premise of wrongful-birth lawsuits is that parents would have terminated the pregnancies had they been given accurate information about the health of the fetus. The Supreme Court said in a 4-3 decision that parents can sue on such grounds but can collect only the costs of the pregnancy and birth, not the price tag of raising a disabled child.
Republican lawmakers have argued that juries should not be determining the value of a life.
"The premise of this type of lawsuit is that death is preferable to life with a disability. That is unconscionable to me," said Rep. Jim Aslanides, a Coshocton Republican.
Parents still could sue if a doctor knowingly withholds infor- mation about the health of a fetus. Still, opponents have argued that the bill would let doctors off the hook for making mistakes and deny parents the right to make a legal choice about their pregnancy.
Unlike their vocal colleagues in the Senate, House Democrats said nothing before the 76-18 vote.
Although the abortion issue is important, House Minority Leader Joyce Beatty said divisive social issues are not part of Democrats’ message in this election year.
"We decided we are not going to let them use wedge issues to get us out of focus," Beatty said.
The House also passed a bill, opposed by state mentalhealth and prisons officials, that would allow Ohio to send violent sex offenders to psychiatric units after they’ve served their time.
State officials have estimated it would cost as much as $9 million in the first year to operate a new 40-bed unit for sex offenders, with expenses rising up to $44 million within five years.
Michael Hogan, director of the Ohio Department of Mental Health, also has questioned where he will put additional sex offenders, who, under the bill, would have to be kept in the same type of locked rooms that house those found incompetent to stand trial.
State officials have suggested it would be better to sentence violent sex offenders to longer prison terms than to push them into already crowded mental-health facilities.
But Rep. Keith L. Faber, R-Celina, said increasing punishments won’t deal with violent sex offenders who were sentenced a decade ago and will be released from prison soon.
"Those with 50 percent or higher recidivism rates are going to go back into our communities and are likely to re-offend," Faber said.
As for the cost, Faber said government’s ultimate role is protecting its citizens.
"How much is saving that one victim worth to us as a legislature?" he asked.
Although the bill passed 94-0 and now heads to the Senate, a few House members from both parties expressed concern about creating a stigma that mental-health patients are criminals.
They also tied the sex offender issue to the need to pass a bill requiring insurance companies to offer the same coverage for mental illness as they do for physical disease or injury.
"If we are serious about implementing public policy that addresses the relationship between mental illness and public safety . . . then we should acknowledge that mental-health parity legislation will do more than any other measure . . . to address the issue of public safety," said Rep. Jon M. Peterson, a Delaware Republican.
I have a few questions, on all levels about this, that will have to wait until later in the week. Bookmarked I hope I get back to this topic.
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping list...
What about the parents who were advised to abort their "abnormal" and/or "genetically flawed" or "deformed" children but refused and went on to give birth to happy, healthy, "normal" babies? Can they sue too for being incorrectly advised?
It's a sad state when people in our country SUE because their baby isn't perfect in their eyes.
Thanks for the ping!
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