Doctor ordered to pay for unwanted baby

[helderheid]

:wow:

Wed Nov 15, 9:05 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A court ruling which ordered a gynecologist to pay child support for up to 18 years as compensation for botching a contraceptive implant was condemned by the German media as scandalous on Wednesday.

The Karlsruhe-based federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the doctor must pay his former patient, now a mother of a three-year-old boy, 600 euros ($769) a month because she became pregnant after he implanted her with a contraceptive device. "A child as a case for damages -- this perverse idea has now been confirmed by one of Germany's highest courts," conservative Die Welt daily newspaper wrote in an editorial on Wednesday.

The device is meant to protect against pregnancy for up to three years, but half a year after the operation, the implant could no longer be found in the woman's body, the court said.

While it should be welcomed that a doctor can now be held to account in the same way as a shoddy plumber, the newspaper said, how could a child whose parents had sought damages for its birth ever come to terms with the situation?

"In addition to the highly private inkling that he was not wanted by his parents, he now has official confirmation that he was born by mistake," Die Welt also said.

The award covers the first years of the child's life and also subsequent costs to the age of 18.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061115/od_nm/child_compensation_dc

[mainegreen]

1. Wow, that's mind bogglingly stupid.

I guess no doctor in Germany will ever provide contraceptive help or advice ever again.

[sweetheart]

2. Arms company ordered to pay for wanted baby killed

let the lawsuits begin. Open season on class actions against people who
install failed terrorist repressors producing unwanted terrorists.

Its a precedent.

[helderheid]

3. THERE YOU GO!

[DemBones DemBones]

4. Poor kid! Lots of people know they

were not "planned" but were welcomed by their parents. I wonder how the parents treat this boy. . .

[helderheid]

5. I feel the same way - that poor child! You were so not wanted we're

making the doctor pay for you, the mistake.

[shawn703]

8. I don't think it has anything to do with "wanting" the child

They may have wanted the contraceptive to prevent from having a child because they could not afford to raise one.

[shawn703]

6. What about this scenario

What if the doctor never implanted the device in the first place, due to his religious beliefs? It seems like I quite often hear the question "Why won't they support the child themselves if they are forcing the mother to have the baby?" when talking about pro-lifers over here - such as the pharmacists who refuse to sell the morning after pill. I'm sure this was not planned by this particular doctor - but people are awarded damages all the time for things that were unintentional.

[gollygee]

13. That would be a different scenario

that would be gross malpractice. But I don't see any mention of that. It sounds like the device was expelled from the body to me. At least no one suggested that maybe he never put a device in.

[kineneb]

7. not that unreasonable

consider-

Abortion is illegal in Germany, courtesy of the history of Nazi eugenics. If a doctor there botched the implantation of a contraceptive, then he is liable for any resulting offspring. The patient was just trying to abide by the local laws and "do the right thing" to avoid pregnancy.

As for the child, it will be no more damaging than parental support after a divorce. Germany as a whole is a lot more kid-friendly than the US.

Consider the news source as well. Check to see what Der Spiegel and Die Zeit have to say. Die Welt is a conservative paper.

[jmowreader]

9. Abortion has been legal since Reunification

When there were two Germanies, the Federal Republic had no abortion and no right turn on red. The Democratic Republic had legal abortion and the right turn on red.

There were two articles in the Federal Republic's constitution that covered reunification--one of them called for a convention to hash out a whole new legal structure, the other just extended the laws of the Federal Republic to the eastern laender.

When the eastern laender found out they were going to lose legal abortion and the right turn on red, they threw a fit. Reunification almost didn't happen over legal abortion and the right on red. (This is no shit: the East Germans were willing to kill reunification over a very minor traffic law. They basically wanted to put some kind of a mark on Germany's legal system...oh yeah, and they wanted to keep the good citizens of the eastern laender from having to pay BILLIONS of marks in fines for turning right on red, because they were gonna do it anyway.)

Now you can get a legal abortion, and turn right on a red light, anywhere in Germany.

[PreacherCasey]

10. No form of contraception is 100% effective.

If you have sex, you just might get pregnant. It doesn't matter how bad you wish you won't. Take some personal effing responsibility already.

And where's the kid's real father in all this?

[gollygee]

11. Exactly my thoughts

No form of contraception is perfect. If she so badly didn't want a baby, she could have had an abortion or placed it for adoption.

And yeah, where's the dad? Why is the dad never mentioned?

[PreacherCasey]

15. I just read the whole article. Want to know where the dad is?

"The award covers the first years of the child's life and also subsequent costs to the age of 18.

The parents, who had known each other six months at the time of the conception, were no longer together, the court said, ruling that the father should also be compensated for the maintenance he was paying toward the child."



:wtf:

This is unbelievable.

[Richard Steele]

14. Exactly. Even 1 in 100 who use "the pill" properly get pregnant every year.

This sounds like a VERY BAD ruling to me.

[Nobody]

12. This is good news! I hope that certain pharmacists get sued

for blocking access to Plan B, or contraceptive drugs.

[DemBones DemBones]

16. No, it's terrible news. A more likely result is that doctors

will refuse to install contraceptive implants, insert IUDs, prescribe oral contraceptives, or fit women for diaphragms.

I don't see that happening right away but if this German decision is upheld, and another case or two like it result in large settlements for "wrongful births," why should doctors put themselves in the position of being sued? It could even stop doctors, nurses, and others from advising people to use condoms, spermicidal foams, contraceptive sponges, etc., since none of these contraceptives have a 100% success rate at preventing pregnancy.

Heterosexual couples having sex have to be aware that pregnancy could result, no matter what method of contraception they use. Sex is biologically intended to produce offspring for the perpetuation of species (any species, not just humans. Flowering plants flower again after flowers are cut because the purpose of producing flowers is to produce fertile seeds.) In humans, pleasure is a secondary biological purpose designed to keep couples together to raise their children.)

The only foolproof ways to prevent pregnancy are abstinence and hysterectomy, including removal of the ovaries.

Many people think tubal ligations and vasectomies are foolproof but there are failures involving the tubes growing back together. With hysterectomy, if the uterus alone is removed, a woman may still have an ectopic pregnancy.

If successful lawsuits for "wrongful births" become a trend, doctors won't want to do tubal ligations or vasectomies, either, since those procedures can reverse themselves, nor will they want to remove uteri without also removing the ovaries. Women having hysterectomies often prefer to keep their ovaries for continued hormone production rather than undergo instant surgically-induced menopause.

The German court made a bad decision and it could set a precedent that will have serious consequences for anyone capable of conceiving a child or of fathering one.