The Glade 4.0

There's a huge difference between eugenics and aborting a particular fetus out of concern for the quality of life that particular child would have if carried to term.

From the article, it was 4 men and 2 women forming the jury.

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Wow, that's just weird ... 12 is standard; grand juries are generally larger than that. Either way ...

I'm still disturbed a jury and judge awarded damages for a lost opportunity at eugenic abortion.

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The damages were for the doctor's negligence. You guys are letting the fact that there's an abortion occurring here cloud the fact that this doctor totally failed in his obligations. You don't think he shouldn't be punished for that?

Why is eugenics necessarily a bad thing?

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Holy shitsnacks!

There's really no evidence the doctor failed in his obligations at all, seeing as how he's a service provider and not a parent. He exists to make easier the healthy delivery of the baby and the mother's general reproductive well being. In fact, even though he's missing limbs, I see nothing that indicates the child is otherwise unhealthy or incapable of living a productive life. So, what obligation did the doctor fail to meet? Your expected outcome?

I covered that before ...

Like 99% of malpractice cases in the United States, this was decided based on outcome, not the actions of the doctor or technician involved.

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It's a moral hazard ... at the very least. At it's very worst, you have (Godwin's) Mengele ...

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Oh, so all the other one-limbed children these parents will have will not be aborted if noticed early?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Agreed!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Khaaaaaaaaaaannnnnn!

Anyway, there's nothing inherent in the concept of eugenics that is morally questionable or will result in or require attrocities.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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It is, however, a moral hazard because it presents extreme opportunity for abuse.

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What exactly are the sonographer's obligations then? Not noticing missing limbs on an ultrasound is pretty far up there when it comes to screwups. if that's not negligence, than what is? If you can miss that and still be considered a competent sonographer, then what exactly is the point of getting an ultrasound?

So do guns, cars, modern pharmaceuticals, illegal drugs... hell the whole of technology.

Why should parents be forced to raise a less than healthy child if they have the medical science available to either correct or abort?

If there was an in-utero therapy for Downs Syndrome, should the parents be held liable if they chose to not have it done? If you were that child, and you knew that your parents could have fixed you before you were born, but *chose* not to because of adherence to some "moral standard"... how would that make you feel?

Eugenics isn't evil. Nor is it good. It is simply a tool.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I personally have no idea what to make of the images produced in a sonogram. Consequently, I can only surmise that the obligations placed on a sonographer include safety and patient comfort; generally, the doctor and the radiologist would be responsible for discussing and demonstrating the results. I don't see a radiologist mentioned, only a technician ...

This leads me to believe that we're missing information on the specific procedure in question.

If there missing limbs were so glaring or obvious in the sonogram that the award is just and malpractice is a valid claim, then one wonders why this wasn't known until the pregnancy was carried to term ...

Arafys:

Fairly certain I said negative eugenics a few times; also fairly certain that your appeal to emotion isn't going to work on me, as I have no idea how I would feel as I would not necessarily be me. Eugenics in a passive, positive sense as proposed by natural selection happens all the time (especially not with human beings). Human beings, however, have the uncanny ability to precipitously procreate in prolific ways with little regard to the genetic result of said copulation.

In other words ... it's a moral hazard because stupid people ****, stupid people get pregnant, and stupid people probably won't make reproductive decisions based on the best benefit to society. They will, however, make sure to flip that Gay Gene to Off if it exists ...

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I'm not sure what your point is here. The fact that it was missed is why the claim is valid. You don't seriously expect the couple themselves to be able to identify the missing limbs from looking at the sonogram, do you? The whole reason you employ the radiologist is to read the sonogram for you.

Obviously, I don't know exactly what the radiologist told them, so I can't rule out that he might have mentioned this to them anyway and that would make the suit completely frivolous. But there's no evidence of that and I'm going to have to assume that he missed it, as it's the most logical conclusion. There would be no other reason to grant the award.

No radiologist was mentioned in the articles, Xequecal; that's kind of my point ...

Why on earth would the performing technician and OB/GYN get hammered and not the radiologist, since he's the specialist you technically paid to read the sonogram in the first place?

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I would theorize that the sonogram was sent directly to the OB/GYN, not given to the couple when it was performed. A lot of lab tests are done this way, it's possible that the ultrasound was also handled that way.

Unless I'm mistaken about which test is a sonogam, my wife and I have gotten a copy of the test right then and there for each baby. Then, the proper procedure is to go show it to the grandmothers so they can go apeshit.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yes, that's how I thought it worked too. I don't really know the specifics of the case, I just think there's a more reasonable explanation than, "Because the baby was born with birth defects, the parents are entitled to choose a few tangentially involved health care providers at random and sue them for $5 million."

Well, they weren't chosen "at random" for one thing, and no one has claimed that. Other than that, it appears that's exactly what happened.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And? If homosexuality is genetic, and a parent desires to have grandchildren then where's the issue?

It should be up to the individual parents to determine if it goes against *their* moral code.

As far as my moral code goes? Health > *. If my parents could have turned off the "asthma" gene, I damn well would have wanted them to. I would have been pissed if I found out that it was possible and they chose not to fix it because it was "god's will" that I have asthma.

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Holy shitsnacks!

What about deaf parents who also want to have deaf children? (yes, this exists, there is a significant percentage of the deaf "community" that sees deafness as a unique badge of honor.)

I can't imagine wanting to inflict a disability on a child intentionally, and there should be legal penalties on those that would do so.

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Holy shitsnacks!

So, you don't have the right, as a parent, to have a child with abnormalities? The logical extension of that is state mandated genetic modification.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

No, what he said is that you don't have a right to intentionally inflict disabilities, which in no way extends to any such mandate.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."