SAD $2M WIN FOR BEING BORN

NY Post ^ | 10/2/2002 | Aly Sujo

[ReadMyMind]

October 2, 2002 -- A severely retarded 20-year-old New Jersey man says he should never have been born - and he's getting a $2.4 million settlement in his "wrongful life" claim against negligent doctors. In his lawsuit against the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, John Moscatello Jr. claimed that if his mother had known she had a chromosomal problem, she would have terminated her pregnancy and he would never have had to live as a "multi-handicapped" adult with the skills of a 2-year-old.

[aimhigh]

Welcome to the end of medicine.

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[anniegetyourgun]

What a sad world we live in that we should view life as wrongful.....

[Old Professer]

What a sad world we live in that we should view life as wrongful.....

Breathes there a parent who hasn't heard, "I didn't ask to be born.."

[gg188]

Did I understand this correctly? If she'd had the information 4 years before the boy was born in '82, then her normal little GIRL wouldn't have been born!?

[Dakmar]

The skills of a 2 year old? Call me cynical, but I suspect there might be lawyers behind this.

[Dakmar]

Yes, they live in the same universe as the older siblings who have never been informed that they weren't the boss of someone.

[lsee]

There is a meaning to the lives of even the most profoundly disabled people.

My life is better because I have had the opportunity to help and take care of severely retarded children and adults at one point in my life. While I am eternally grateful my kids are not handicapped in any way, I can't believe that I would wish they had not been born, even if their care was a severe strain on the family and on them.

I'm sorry for the suffering of the disabled, but to say they should not have been born robs us all of the opportunity to learn from and love the amazing variety of people we encounter in the course of our lives. Every life is important, every soul matters.

Some of my experiences with the severely retarded were unpleasant and traumatic, but I'll never forget them. I hope we each benefitted from our shared experience.

[Bogey78O]

'"The goal of this case was to make sure that John could have the loving care of his family," said Nagel. "This settlement will insure that he will be cared for even after his parents are no longer here to take care of him." '

Then why not kill the guy right now?

I mean if you view him as an accident that should never have been then why not just put him down like a lame pup. In fact why didn't the doctor euthanize her right then and there when they tested her to prevent this monstrosity from being born?

Don't go telling us he shouldn't have been born then singing the praises of how wonderful he is. It reveals too much really.

[perfect stranger]

And you wonder why malpractice insurance is prohibitive.

How much of that goes to the POS lawyer?

On another more sane parallel world this case didn't make it as far----

The judge for the case simply said, "Well if you really didn't want to be born we can fix that right now.", reaching for his gun.

Quickly getting the message, the plaintiff whined, "No! I wasn't really serious Your Honor, I want to withdrawl this case!!!"

[Thisiswhoweare]

Okay, it's the guarantee thing again. When will everyone get it, there is no guarantee in this life. If the doctor's had known of the problem and encouraged her anyway, maybe, there would be some liability. In the article, they admit that they didn't detect abnormalities and she indeed had a healthy baby girl.

I haave a hard time balancing this with people that are against the death penalty. I hope cases like this don't get up steam to "off" anyone with disabilities. Like the movie Gatica, valid or invalid. That would be worse than sad.

[mostlyundecided]

I wonder if the next slip down the slope will be that if a mother knows she is having a handicapped child and doesn't abort, then the state and the insurance company will not be responsible for the care of that child, telling her since she chose to have the baby then she is financially responsible for the care of it as she is being neglectful in not getting the abortion. Does it go both ways?

[anniegetyourgun]

Too late - Dr. Singer of Princeton has beat you to the idea of parents having a "reasonable period" of time after a child is born to decide if it should have the right to life.

[perfect stranger]

Planned Parenthood and other of their kind should be eating this up, but they won't touch it. So much for consistency.

[Thisiswhoweare]

Hadn't heard that. Guess it's why the dems support partial birth abortion. It gives them time to change their minds if they didn't get the promotion for a better salary.

[highpockets]

Money will always lubricate any slide it happens upon.

[lsee]

What if the child is born normal, but then has a terrible accident or illness that renders him/her severely disabled. Can abortion be retroactive? Can the mother sue on the basis that the doctors should have been able to put him/her back together again, like Humpty Dumpty? When is it too late to trade the injured child in for a new one?

As a taxpayer, I have no problem with helping to pay the expenses of supporting a severely disabled person, especially if this person has no other means of support. We already do this in the form of social security payments for disabilities. America also has special funds to help pay for treatment and research for rare genetic disorders and other diseases. Orphan drug programs exist to produce rarely needed medications and hospitals regularly write off the expenses of caring for indigent patients.

I'd be very interested to know exactly what lifestyle these people will now enjoy and whether there are any stipulations that these funds revert to some charitable trust upon the man's death. We shouldn't treat disabilities like a lottery. It seems to me that the woman alone would not provide all the genetic clues needed to produce a healthy baby. Her husband or the biological father should have been half the equation. Sometimes two recessive genes can produce extraordinary defects which could not have been predicted in the first place. The lawsuit was hogwash.

[speekinout]

he's getting a $2.4 million settlement in his "wrongful life" claim against negligent doctors.

Does a doctor have any choice other than to recommend abortion for any pregnancy? Why would a doctor risk delivering a live baby? It could ruin him or her financially.
Let's go back to the time when babies are delivered at home, and the fragile ones don't survive. That's where we are going. Is it really what we want?

[Dakmar]

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