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It's a shame that the judge's decision will affect only obstetricians. We
*all* have a moral duty to care for the unborn.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09101902.html
Judge Rules that Obstetricians Have a Duty of Care to the Unborn
By Patrick B. Craine
LONDON, Ontario, October 19, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Ontario Superior
Court ruled last Wednesday that obstetricians owe a duty of care to the
unborn.
The question about the responsibility of healthcare workers towards the
unborn arose after Guelph General Hospital had claimed that there was no
such responsibility in August, during a preliminary proceeding to a
malpractice case brought by a family who claim that hospital staff were
negligent in the birth of their son.
Kevin Liebig, 8, from Rockford, was born with hypoxic ischemic
encephalopathy, a type of brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, and has
since been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. His family, who have fought a
seven-year-long legal battle against the hospital and members of its staff,
maintain that Kevin's condition is due to the fact that his mother, Susan,
was given too much oxytocin during his delivery without adequate monitoring.
The defendants in the case are Guelph General Hospital, Dr. Benjamin
Ayandabejo, Dr. Roger Perron, Dr. Donald Huband, and nurses Jean McLean,
Laura Lobo, Deb Rendall, and Amy Forsythe Tettman.
The defendants argued that they did not owe a duty of care to Kevin prior to
birth, citing two 2008 cases in which Ontario judges had determined that a
physician does not have a duty of care to a woman's "future children,"
whether yet conceived or not, but merely to the woman.
Regarding obstetrics, however, the judge in the current case disagreed.
"The duty to both mother and fetus in the maternal-fetal care scenario has
been long established in Canadian jurisprudence," stated Justice Wolfram
Tausendfreund.
"The existence of the duty of care owed by physicians and nurses to a fetus
has been recognized by numerous trial decisions across Canada," he writes,
giving examples from four provinces.
http://www.lifesitenews.com
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J Young
Jvisions at (no spam) live.com |
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