But one thing that that should not be difficult is that those that are negligent should pay the costs. Because otherwise, it is you and I, the taxpayers, that pay the costs.

Unreasonable? The premise of the lawsuit was that she missed her window to abort because of negligence and so now she’s stuck with him (and his expenses). How is it unreasonable to wonder why she didn’t simply allow adoption?

Your scenario would be unreasonable… but it has nothing to do with this case.

Apparently less terrible in the eyes of some than terminating a human life, and yet they win the lawsuit.

We don’t know when and under what circumstances the ultrasounds were done. They could have been done early on before the limbs buds grow to recognizable extremeties or the patient may have had amniotic band syndrome which can amputate portions the the fetal body, especially the limbs. Scanning could have occured before this and would report 4 limbs. Many factors going into getting a quality scan, some out of the control of the doctor or technician. If the mother is large, or the fetus is scrunched up, you might not seen any of the normal structures.

D. Schwartz

I don’t think you can say the doctor caused the damage to this baby. This was a genetic or random event.

Say a doctor causes damage to a fetus. Can he get out of having to pay damages by simply arguing that the mother should have had an abortion?

Sure, it’s reasonable to expect people to mitigate their own damages. But asking them to give up their own children to mitigate damages seems outrageously unreasonable to me.

If this mother thought she was better off without this kid and she missed her window to kill him, why not simply allow him to be adopted? No one, and certainly not the results of an ultrasound, forced this woman to accept the financial burden’s that came along with this child.

With the theory involved in this case and considering the expense of our overlawyered system, is every OB liable if they neglected to counsel mothers of lawyers that their kids would financially ruin millions of people if not terminated? Too bad we aren’t better at predicting which fetuses will turn out to be personal injury lawyers…