Quote:
Originally Posted by valkyrie
HAHA that is the best thing anybody has ever said to me!
I know my analogy isn't exactly the same thing, but it's a bummer that people on this thread can't get past the emotional "OMG A BABY ISN'T A BAD THING" because for some people, it is and for some people, having an unwanted baby probably sucks just as much as having a leg amputated by accident (having never had a baby or an amputation, I can't speak from experience, but I'd be pretty upset to have either). In both cases, a doctor made a mistake and someone suffered unwanted consequences as a result. Why shouldn't some of the costs be transferred to the doctors? (I avoided the word "responsible" because my torts professor totally yelled at anybody who ever used that word.)
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Haha, my civ pro professor gets the same way when people use the word "guilty."
I think I'm agreeing with shinerbock on this; I mean, I'm pro-choice (although I have conflicting feelings on abortion, I don't think it's anyone's right to control someone's body), and as a law student I understand the rationale for damages (at least as well as a 1L can understand it), but this case still strikes me the wrong way. Of course, if things were decided on whether they struck someone "the wrong way," we'd have a messed up legal system.
I see where the woman would be entitled to some damages, but I wouldn't equate it to amputating the wrong leg, if only because you have all sorts of other health/morbidity concerns with that.
I honestly don't know what I would equate it with, only because I've never heard of anything like this before. I could see the mother/victim being entitled to something, I'm just not sure what that "something" would be. Have the physician or his insurance company pay for the costs associated with putting the baby up for adoption? Emotional and psychological damages? Did she suffer any lasting physical harm from the child birth?
Of course maybe it's best for her this happened in Massachusetts, where the court system doesn't mind going out on a limb.