{"id":245269,"date":"2021-05-16T11:09:20","date_gmt":"2021-05-16T16:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=245269"},"modified":"2021-05-14T17:19:34","modified_gmt":"2021-05-14T22:19:34","slug":"kansas-upholds-wrongful-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/kansas-upholds-wrongful-birth\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court of Kansas upholds ban on ‘wrongful birth’ lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

The Kansas Supreme Court surprised pro-lifers last month when it upheld a law<\/a> preventing the practice of \u201cwrongful birth\u201d suits against doctors.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a 5-2 decision, the Kansas justices upheld a 2013 law forbidding the practice of \u201cwrongful birth\u201d lawsuits. The law prevents parents from seeking damages from doctors who do not inform them that their preborn child has a poor prenatal diagnosis or of the “risk” or “burden” of having such a child. Parents who have brought such lawsuits claim this information might have made them choose abortion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The original legal challenge was brought by the parents of a girl born in May 2014 with a severe brain abnormality. According to the <\/span>Associated Press<\/span><\/a>, attorneys argued that the parents would have chosen abortion if the doctor had provided a diagnosis of the child\u2019s medical condition. They argued that by preventing them from suing the doctor for wrongful birth, the\u00a0law violates provisions of the state\u2019s\u00a0bill of rights<\/a>\u00a0such as the right to a jury trial and the right to \u201cremedy by due course of law\u201d for injuries. In rejecting the legal challenge, the majority argued that the concept of wrongful birth lawsuits was an \u201cinnovation,\u201d and that the state\u2019s founders had not conceived of the concept in the 1850s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a new species of malpractice action first recognized in 1990,\u201d Justice Dan Biles wrote in their opinion.<\/p>\n

As Live Action News previously\u00a0<\/span>reported<\/span><\/a>, in 2019, a British woman was awarded $250,000 in a wrongful birth suit against the National Health Service after arguing her son with Down syndrome should never have been born.\u00a0<\/span>Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who fought against the ability to bring wrongful birth suits, hailed the decision. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe birth of a child should be cause for celebration, not for the law to award damages because the child was \u2018wrongfully\u2019 born,\u201d he said, according to the AP.<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Baby aborted at 18 weeks clung to life for 10 hours in his mother\u2019s arms<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Kansas decision came as a surprise to some pro-lifers who had expected the state\u2019s Supreme Court to continue its abortion-friendly rulings. <\/span><\/p>\n

In 2019, <\/span>the Kansas Supreme Court ruled<\/a> in a 6-1 decision that the right to an abortion was \u201cfundamental\u201d and protected by the state\u2019s constitution, meaning that abortion would be legal in Kansas even if Roe v. Wade<\/em> were overturned. At the time, only Justice Caleb Stegall dissented: \u201cThe majority\u2019s decision is so consequential because it fundamentally alters the structure of our government to magnify the power of the state \u2013 all while using that power to arbitrarily grant a regulatory reprieve to the judicially privileged act of abortion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the ruling on wrongful birth lawsuits, Justice Stegall blasted a 1990 court decision that had allowed wrongful birth legal action prior to the 2013 law. He called it a \u201creprehensible discrimination\u201d against children, and he noted that the \u201cKansas Supreme Court said quite loudly that under Kansas law, some lives are worth more than others,\u201d according to the AP. Although he joined the other four justices in upholding the 2013 law, he went further by arguing that the court should have overturned the 1990 ruling as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Abortion due to a prenatal diagnosis is a form of eugenics that has become the expectation<\/a> whenever a preborn child is believed to have a health condition, yet it has been shown to have\u00a0detrimental psychological effects<\/a> on the parents compared to those who do carry to term.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kansas Supreme Court surprised pro-lifers last month when it upheld a law preventing the practice of \u201cwrongful birth\u201d suits against doctors. In a 5-2 decision, the Kansas justices upheld a 2013 law forbidding the practice of \u201cwrongful birth\u201d lawsuits. The law prevents parents from seeking damages from doctors who do not inform them that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":606,"featured_media":241785,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3473,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court of Kansas upholds ban on 'wrongful birth' lawsuits<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kansas\u2019s Supreme Court surprised pro-lifers last month when it upheld a law preventing the practice of \u201cwrongful birth\u201d suits against doctors.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/kansas-upholds-wrongful-birth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme 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