Question

Bryan Mejia was born with only one leg and no arms. His parents, Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana, have accused Marie Morel, MD, and OB/GYN Specialists of the Palm Beaches and Perinatal Specialists of the Palm Beaches of negligence for not properly detecting their son's defect and disability through ultrasound scans before he was born. They said they would have aborted their son if they had known he would have only one limb. The parents sued the physician and the clinic. The defendant's attorney argued that Morel is not to blame because the parents opted to not undergo amniocentesis, which might have detected any abnormalities. The parents rejected it because they were told that there was a small risk that performing the test would cause a miscarriage. The parents decided they would rather risk the chance of having a child with mental retardation than to risk a miscarriage. The court awarded the parents $4.5 million for a wrongful birth lawsuit.

Should Mejia's parents be held responsible because they declined the amniocentesis that might have detected their son's defect?

Would this be a case of eugenics? Does it promote aborting unborn children when diagnosed with a physical or mental disability?

Answer 1

Amniocentesis is a procedure where a amniotic fluid is taken during the intrauterine period of the fetus or during the pregnancy and examined for genetic abnormality. This generally pose risk for infection, bleeding, miscarriage, etc.,These reasons could made the parents to decline this procedure. They cannot be held responsible because it is mostly used to identify congenital defects but the ultrasound scan during pregnancy can easily identify the physical birth defects by the healthcare professionals.Thos indicates the healthcare professionals has missed this great defect in the scan and led to birth of an unhealthy baby.

This can be categorized into genetic eugenics .According to eugenics a child who has severe congenital or physical disabilities and be very concerning when they are born to lead a life. In simple the suffering they may have in the future can be prevented by aborting them when they are in the firm of fetus. In these types of severe cases abortion is promoted .