Children's suits for suffering life.
In some recent court cases, parents have sued physicians and testing institutions for negligence resulting in injury not only to themselves but also to their newly born, defective children. The suits on behalf of the children have not endeavored to demonstrate that the responsible medical sector caused the child's affliction, but rather that the child would not have suffered his abnormality 'but for' the remiss behavior of those responsible parties. That such harm due to negligence should be compensated is the aim of wrongful life suits. Although such suits are often argued to be untenable because of the alleged impossibility of comparing the harm of existence in the defective state with the harm of nonexistence, this essay suggests that such comparisons are indeed possible and that wrongful life suits cannot be so easily dismissed.
Perry
C
C
Department of Philosophy, Auburn University, Ala.
D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008318:Malpractice / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D009035:Mothers; D014481:United States; D015974:Wrongful Life