Q&A: Wrongful Birth
Wrongful Birth
Question
Have a good week, Rabbi,
Recently I came across a case of a wrongful birth lawsuit in the press, where the plaintiff was awarded millions in compensation for the failure to perform an abortion in time. I wanted to ask about this: why is an “abortion” considered the only solution to a life of suffering? Why can’t one argue in response that she can end her life herself in Switzerland, for example, through the Dignitas organization or something similar?
Best regards,
Answer
Because by the time the baby grows up, accumulates money, and gets to die in Switzerland, he suffers.
Discussion on Answer
The question was why abortion is the only solution for preventing suffering. The question of compensation is a different question. You are assuming that one can demand that a person have an abortion in order to prevent suffering. That is not at all certain. Right now she prefers to suffer rather than commit suicide. But she would have preferred not to exist at all.
I already wrote here about the oxymoron of a preference belonging to a non-existent person.
But abortion is ending his life after he has already been created, so how is that different from euthanizing him now?
You know my position regarding abortions. I am not dealing with my opinion about what is right, but with explaining the above judgment.
So according to your view, there is no place to award compensation in a case like this, and in general in cases of an abortion that was “missed”?
Of course not. Abortion is murder, so to impose damages on someone who did not murder or did not allow a murder?!
But the compensation awarded to the plaintiff was mainly for her future expenses (a caregiver, for example), not for what she has spent until now.