Friday, December 13, 2013

Wrongful Birth?

 Wrongful Birth Jury Award
  
The Family Policy Institute of Washington condemns the $50 million jury award to parents of child born with disabilities.

Lynnwood, WA - December 13, 2013 - Today a jury in Seattle awarded two Washington parents $50 million in a wrongful birth lawsuit against Valley Medical Center in Burien and a North Carolina Company, LabCorp, after a genetic test failed to diagnose a rare genetic disorder.

The Family Policy Institute of Washington's  executive director Joseph Backholm said, "This verdict is alarming because it suggests that this child's life is an actual injury.  The fact that a child is not genetically perfect does not make it a problem to be solved.  This should be chilling to anyone who believes life is valuable for any reason other than the return on investment they provide. People are inherently valuable because they are people, not because of some benefit we derive from them."

Backholm said immediate legislative action would be appropriate to address wrongful birth lawsuits in Washington State.

The parents apparently knew there was a 50% chance of this genetic defect and ordered the test with the intention of getting an abortion if the test came back positive.  The tests came back negative, but when the child was born with the defect the parents sued.

"The parents are no longer able to take their child's life legally and because of that they were awarded $50 million. The implications of this are staggering in all the wrong ways," Backholm concluded.
  
Contact Info:
Joseph Backholm, Executive Director
Family Policy Institute of Washington
16108 Ash Way, Suite 111-A
Lynnwood, WA  98087
Phone: 425-608-0242
Email: joseph@fpiw.org
Web: 
www.fpiw.org  

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