Suing Over a Failed Abortion.

Pregnant with twins, has an abortion, one twin survives and now the mother is suing for the cost of raising the child. Yes, there’s all sorts of problems here, not least that at some point the child is going to find out that her mother actively attempted to kill her. But it’s this line that niggles at me:

She gave birth to her daughter, Jayde, who is now three, in August 2001
at Perth Royal Infirmary, and is suing Tayside University NHS Trust in
a legal action believed to be the first of its kind in Britain.

Rolling around in the back of my mind is the thought that this is not the first case by a long shot. I vaguely remember a case where the judgement was that "having a child cannot be regarded as a misfortune for which compensation is necessary" or some such. Anyone know exactly?

4 responses

  1. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1584236,00.html
    Is this the one?
    Tim adds: That one in the last para, maybe. I can’t even remember which decade the incident I’m thinking of happened.

  2. This really does annoy me. There are countless couples who would love to adopt a healthy baby. She didn’t want the twins and chose to have an abortion (presumably for lifestyle reasons) – which is a selfish action in my mind. She then compounds that selfishness by taking legal action against an already stretched NHS (I should know – the hostpital she is sueing is my local hospital too) instead of putting her up for adoption!

  3. “Yes, there’s all sorts of problems here, not least that at some point the child is going to find out that her mother actively attempted to kill her.”
    My wife’s grandmother tried to abort my wife’s Aunt Iris. In about 1930. Probably for “lifestyle” reasons.
    Since I know about it, it’s quite possible Iris does too. But she’s what used to be called “retarded”.
    Of course in those days it was more dangerous to have an abortion than to have a baby.

  4. There seems to be lots of case law along the lines that a child is a blessing and cannot be seen as an injury to be compensated.
    eg.
    http://www.lawreports.co.uk/hlpc_nov1.4.htm

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