Belgium: Court Approves “Wrongful Life” Rule that Disabled Child Should Never Have Been Born

Saturday, December 4, 2010
Wesley J. Smith

Belgium’s euthanasia law permits people to be killed by doctors because they are disabled. In such a discriminatory setting, is it any wonder that a Belgian court has now approved the odious notion of a wrongful life. From the story (may have to hit translation button):

The Court of Appeal in Brussels responds positively to this extremely sensitive issue. After noting that “certainly, the misdiagnosis did not cause the child’s disability, which existed before the error and which could not be remedied,” the Court considers that, “however, the injury must be compensated is not the disability itself, but the fact of being born with such disabilities. “ Thus, the child, the voice of his parents, may claim compensation for physicians who, through their fault, some were injured and legitimate interest to be a therapeutic abortion, as granted that his mother would have been appeal if it had been duly informed of the condition during pregnancy. In the opinion of the Court, by entering in the Penal Code article 350, paragraph 2, 4, authorizing therapeutic abortion, “the legislature must have intended to help avoid giving birth to children with abnormalities serious, having regard not only to the interests of the mother but also to that of the unborn child itself. ”

This is the first time in Belgium that an appellate court receives such a wrongful life action (wrongful life). Previously, a trial court of first instance of Brussels, released April 21, 2004, had adopted a similar solution, about a child with Down syndrome. the rest