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Jury awards West Palm Beach parents of child born with no arms, one leg $4.5 millionBy Jane Musgrave Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 1:06 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011
Posted: 12:28 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9, 2011
After nearly nine hours of deliberation over two days, a Palm Beach County jury today awarded a West Palm Beach couple $4.5 million to care for their son who was born with no arms and one leg.
With the heartbreaking image of the small boy etched into their minds, jurors found Palm Beach Gardens obstetrician Dr. Marie Morel, OB/GYN Specialists of the Palm Beaches and Perinatal Specialists of the Palm Beaches responsible for not detecting the boy's horrific disabilities before he was born. The amount they awarded is half of the $9 million Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana were seeking for their son, Bryan.
The teary-eyed couple said they were overjoyed by the verdict. "I have no words," Mejia said in her native Spanish. Both agreed the award will make a huge difference in their son's life.
The jury of four men and two women found Morel 85 percent and an ultrasound technician 15 percent negligent for failing to properly read sonograms that would have alerted the couple of their son's disabilities before he was born in October 2008.
Attorney Mark Rosen, who represents Morel and the clinics, said they would appeal.
During a roughly two-week-long trial that ended Wednesday, Mejia and Santana claimed they would have never have brought Bryan into the world had they known about his horrific disabilities. Had Morel and technicians at OB/GYN Specialists of the Palm Beaches and Perinatal Specialists of the Palm Beaches properly administered two ultrasounds and seen he was missing three limbs, the West Palm Beach couple said they would have terminated the pregnancy.
Instead, they went to the hospital in October 2008, believing they would have a healthy son.
"They went from the heights of joyous expectations to the depths of despair," their attorney Robert Bergin told the jury during closing arguments Wednesday.
While the jury is being asked to award the couple money for their pain, he said they don't want any money for their suffering.
"Ana and Rodolfo Santana know their mental anguish and their emotions are not important," Bergin said. "The only thing that will help make up for their mental anguish is to know Bryan's life plan is fully funded."
The plan, that would cost $9 million, will cover prostheses, wheelchairs, operations, attendants and other needs he will have during his estimated 70-year life, Bergin said. "It will give piece of mind to these people that no matter what happens to them, their son will be all right," said Jason Weisser, who also represents the couple.
Without discounting Bryan's enormous needs, attorneys representing Morel and the ultrasound clinics insisted their clients weren't negligent.
"There is nothing Dr. Morel wants more than for Bryan Santana to have a happy, healthy life," said attorney Mark Rosen. "That doesn't mean they're responsible. Is it fair to blame physicians for acts of nature?"
He argued that the couple rejected amniocentesis, which might have revealed the abnormalities. The couple rejected it because they were told that there was a 1 in 500 chance that removing amniotic fluid for testing would cause a miscarriage.
Mejia testified that a genetic counselor she saw after an ultrasound detected a possibility Bryan would be born with Down's Syndrome told her there was a 99.9 percent chance he wouldn't have the form of mental retardation. Rather than needlessly risk losing the child, she and her husband decided not to have amniocentesis.
In doing so, Rosen said, the couple decided that they would rather give birth to a child that might have a physical or mental disability rather than risk losing it. That, he said, is contrary to their claims that they would have aborted their unborn son.
"No one is happy about what happened to Bryan Santana but Ana Mejia made the decision in 2008," he said.
Weisser countered that the couple was told the risk of Down's Syndrome was slight. While other abnormalities might have been detected by amniocentesis, the prospect of having a child who was missing three limbs was never discussed with the couple.
"There's not one shred of evidence that they were ever told there was an issue with one of his limbs, let along three," he said.
In fact, according to the second ultrasound, all four limbs were intact. "That, ladies and gentleman is impossible," Weisser said. "It didn't happen."
Quote:
Jury Gives Parents $4.5 Million Because They Missed Chance to Abort Disabled Son
Here’s a question for you parents. How much money is your child worth? What is the price tag you would print out and paste on their forehead before putting them on the shelf at Wal-Mart? I’m sure you would say priceless. But how much is a missed opportunity to abort your disabled child worth to you? One Florida couple said $9 million. The jury agreed but only gave them half.
On September 9, a West Palm Beach jury awarded parents [2] Rodolfo Santana and Ana Mejia $4.5 million because they did not get accurate information from Dr. Marie Morel and OB/GYN Specialists of the Palm Beaches. Their son Bryan Santana, now age 3, was born disabled. He has no arms and only one leg. The argument made by his parents was that if the clinic had told them their son was so disabled, they would have aborted him. And since they didn’t get a chance to terminate Bryan in the womb, and obviously they can’t legally do it now, they wanted millions of dollars.
The woman, who certainly will not win any mother-of-the year awards, told the jury during the two-week trial:
Definitely, I would have had an abortion.
I hope when little Bryan grows up he never Googles himself or his parents. I can’t imagine the horror when he reads that his parents wish they would have killed him. I wonder how quickly he will grasp that his parents think his life, since he has disabilities, isn’t worth living. I wonder if that jury considered how the disabled community would feel if they knew that a jury awarded these parents millions because they missed the opportunity to abort their disabled son.
Shortly after the jury made its decision I contacted Marc Sherman, Program Director for AccessABILITY Center for Independent Living, Inc. Sherman, who has been diagnosed with C5/C6 quadriplegia himself, had a strong reaction:
A disability is just a natural part of life. A person with a disability has just as much worth and just as much as importance as anybody else. It doesn’t matter what kind of disability, they have just as much worth and importance. They should get to choose how they want to live.
Sherman went on to explain that people with disabilities are guaranteed the same rights as anyone else, and that this case says a lot about how our culture still sees the disabled as less than equal:
The disabled have rights just like women or minorities. This case would be the same as if these parents wanted to abort a child because of gender or race. It’s the same thing as in China where you have women aborting children because they are females and not males.
It’s a valid argument. What would that jury have done if the parents complained that the clinic told them they were having a male but they had a female? What would the reaction be to a parent openly saying that they deserve millions because they would have aborted their girl if they knew she was going to be a girl? Any ultrasound nurse will tell you that every once in a while they get the gender wrong. Does this give precedence for future lawsuits?
Few people realize how much sentiment exists out there that the disabled are less than human. If you want proof one only has too look at abortion. In the UK, for example [3], there are limits on when you can abort a baby unless that baby has severe disabilities. The UK law does not define those disabilities but allows abortion up until the moment of birth if the child is disabled. Why? Obviously the message is that a child with disabilities has less value or reason to live. The West Palm Beach jury would agree with that atrocious idea.
The numbers [4] should shock you. In America, 90% of non-life threatening disabled babies are aborted. If you have a disability in the womb, you have a 1 in 10 chance of being born. You have a 9 in 10 chance of your parents deciding your life isn’t worth living. In 2003, a Gallup poll [4] revealed that almost 6 in 10 Americans think it is okay to abort if a child has a mental or physical disability. Imagine if instead of a disability, 6 in 10 said it was okay to abort because a child is black or female.
Thankfully, these numbers are so shocking that even some on the pro-choice Left see this as a problem. The Left is conflicted in being pro-rights for all types of minorities, but being pro-choice on abortion. As one pro-choice writer [4] put it:
There is clearly a double standard here. It seems that a large number of people are pro-life only for babies who are thought to be “perfect.” Polling indicates that people not faced with this decision personally would still be more likely to support an abortion in this situation. Reality indicates that people actually faced with this decision almost universally choose abortion.
We need more on the Left to realize their own double standard. Ted Kennedy, who was a huge pro-choice advocate, understood the poor treatment of the disabled. In 2005, Kennedy co-sponsored [5] the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act. That bill expanded federal financing to teach parents of children with Down Syndrome how to help raise them. Kennedy understood that parents needed to learn that disabled children had equal value, and if parents learned those skills, then they wouldn’t feel the need to abort. The goal of the bill was to stop the atrocious rate of abortions based on a child being diagnosed with Down Syndrome. That bill was co-sponsored by big pro-lifer Sam Brownback, it was signed into law by President Bush, and it was actually backed by the pro-abortion NARAL.
We can dream that someday Americans will again see the value in the lives of the disabled and turn the 90% abortion rate around. But for now, a jury in Florida all made it clear that they believe the disabled are not worthy of life. And missing out on the chance to kill the disabled when still in the womb is now worth millions.
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