{"id":274770,"date":"2022-08-25T14:41:14","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T19:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=274770"},"modified":"2022-08-24T18:45:25","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T23:45:25","slug":"washington-allows-wrongful-life-lawsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/washington-allows-wrongful-life-lawsuits\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington court allows large awards in ‘wrongful life’ lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

“Wrongful birth” lawsuits are controversial. Sometimes known as “wrongful life” lawsuits, they occur when parents sue a doctor or medical facility claiming their child should not have been born, often because the child was born with disabilities. Now, thanks to a legal ruling in Washington state, there is a chance these lawsuits will become more common.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press reported<\/a> that in a recent case, the Washington Supreme Court ruled unanimously it was acceptable to give “extraordinary” awards in wrongful life suits, due to children born with disabilities or birth defects.<\/p>\n

The case was brought based on \u00a0the case of Yesenia Pacheco, who got pregnant in 2011 when a federally funded health clinic failed to give her the Depo Provera birth control shot she requested and accidentally administered a flu vaccine instead. Pacheco and her boyfriend, Luis Lemus, had a little girl named Sandra, who is severely disabled; she is, according to the Associated Press, “mostly blind, suffers seizures, falls often and is ‘horribly disabled.'”<\/p>\n

In 2020, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik awarded the couple $10 million, with $7.5 million for expenses relating to Sandra’s care and $2.5 million in damages for her parents. The Department of Justice appealed the ruling, arguing that the birth control was not meant to specifically avoid a child being born with disabilities, and they should only be held responsible for costs relating to Pacheco’s pregnancy and birth. The 9th Circuit then asked the Washington Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue.<\/p>\n

Justice Mary Yu authored the 9-0 decision and said that as some children are born with birth defects, the possibility that Pacheco would give birth to a child with a disability was a foreseeable circumstance. \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s left to argue about,\u201d Mike Maxwell, the family’s attorney, told the Associated Press. \u201cThis whole appeal has served no purpose other than delaying her care and further injuring this child. It\u2019s been a long road. The government needs to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Yu also noted that the terminology used in prior rulings in Washington state has been harmful. \u201cIt is both incorrect and harmful to refer to any person as \u2018defective\u2019 or to suggest that a child with congenital defects is not \u2018normal,\u2019\u201d she wrote. While that is a reassuring strike against ableist verbiage, the ruling itself will almost certainly encourage more couples to file wrongful life suits in the future.<\/p>\n

READ:<\/strong>\u00a0Man with disabilities advocates for eugenic abortions because parents \u2018have to live with the consequences\u2019<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Though the lawsuits have been relatively rare, the advent of prenatal testing has encouraged more people to complain that they did not have a chance to abort their children due to disability. Multiple<\/a> people have sued over conditions like Down syndrome<\/a> or cystic fibrosis<\/a>, claiming that they would have aborted their children had their health care provider given them prenatal testing. Such lawsuits are so controversial that the Kansas Supreme Court banned them<\/a> just last year. Attorney General Derek Schmidt told the Associated Press at the time that “[t]he birth of a child should be cause for celebration, not for the law to award damages because the child was \u2018wrongfully\u2019 born.”<\/p>\n

Yet the Washington Supreme Court ruling could open the door for that ruling to be challenged, as well as offer other parents angry about parenting a child with a disability the chance to not only sue, but to receive a substantial payout. Prenatal testing is meant to be a valuable pro-life tool<\/a>, but instead, it’s been hijacked to encourage parents to get eugenic abortions.<\/p>\n

This Washington ruling could also encourage fearful doctors to push prenatal testing on parents solely to avoid being sued for tens of millions of dollars over the birth of a child with a disability. Ultimately, it continues to encourage viewing the birth of a child with a disability as a tragedy to be prevented when possible, and as something so awful that parents must be compensated for it.<\/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":"

“Wrongful birth” lawsuits are controversial. Sometimes known as “wrongful life” lawsuits, they occur when parents sue a doctor or medical facility claiming their child should not have been born, often because the child was born with disabilities. Now, thanks to a legal ruling in Washington state, there is a chance these lawsuits will become more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":186258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[15,3473],"tags":[1049,18737,4475,18738,2709,2710],"yoast_head":"\nWashington court allows large awards in 'wrongful life' lawsuits<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wrongful life lawsuits occur when parents sue, claiming their child should not have been born. 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