There is an article about a woman who is sueing planned parenthood for a failed abortion. She instead gave birth to a healthy child.  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070307/ap_on_re_us/abortion_lawsuit;_ylt=AgjnIZ0RhMEn4hUSpMTfOEgDW7oF  I read about it over at mamdrama yesterday.  There are a lot of people over there who think she has no right to sue, but I think there are 2 sides to see here. So, I wanted to talk about it a bit more.

<disclaimer> I'm forming this opinion on the basis of a news story. I, of course, have no more details myself, and am just experessing the thoughts and feelings that story evoked in my mind. The full story might have information that would make me change my mind, or might show that the newspapers completely changed the tone of what was happening to suit their story. Not that that has ever happened. I'm assuming the "facts" as reported by the story are true. <end disclaimer>

My first reaction to this was horror. Why would she possibly sue? She has a healthy baby, and does she know what mental damage this is going to do to that little girl? She could have just given the baby up for adoption if she didn't want to raise it. Yeah, sue to get her money back for the abortion, and the costs of delivery and stuff, but the cost of raising the kid? That's a bit much, don't you think? Poor kid. There are so many people out there who'd love to have a healthy baby to raise.

But I got to talking about it with my husband last night and realized some things. This looks like a CLEAR case of medical malpractice. I think I should say here that I'm pro-choice. I don't really think that has much bearing on the issue at all, because right now abortion is legal. She had the legal right to request an abortion and expect that it be carried out. The doctors had a responsibility to carry out the services that they were paid for. That didn't happen. They were negligent.

Whether or not this lady loves her baby is not the issue. She determined (responsibly, in my opinion) that she was not going to raise a child if she wasn't able to provide for it financially. Can you imagine how hard that decision would be to make? And then to make it and have that decision reversed by a simple screw-up outside of your control? And then to have another doctor not notice? And to everyone who says "just do adoption": how hard it would be to give up your child after you've given birth? To know that someone else is raising your kid and she's out there somewhere? just because of a screw-up? They've taken away any possiblity of putting the "abortion" in her past and given her a very difficult choice to make. She either has to 1)give up her child, or 2)try to raise her knowing that she is unable to provide for her financially, or 3)sue to try and change that fact, and raise her child anyway and find a way to explain it to her child later. Would it be better for her not to get any money and live on welfare?

Some say that she shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place, and to that I say, "Well, duh!" But how many times has that happened? I know for a fact that I was un-planned. I hadn't planned on having Anya for about another 6 months. She came earlier. i love her more than I could have ever imagined. Sometimes, things don't work out like you plan. You try to deal with them the best you can. She's trying to raise her daughter. We can't assume that there is no love, just because the baby wasn't planned. Or even just because she was going to have an abortion.

By sueing, she's not only going to be compensated for the cost of raising the kid, she's assuring that those inept doctors won't kill someone else with their "mistakes". (I can't believe I just advocated sueing someone. I normally hate our lawyer-happy culture - especially on the subject of malpractice!) They should have their licenses taken away. This is the only way to acheive that.

And now she's going to raise her kid, even though she wasn't in a financial position to do so. It wasn't her choice to have a kid in the first place, but that doesn't mean she doesn't love it. And it doesn't mean she should be hated. It could just mean that she wants to be able to provide a good life for her kid.

of course, I could be wrong and she's just a money-grubbing loser sueing because she can...

And now, I'll step away from the keyboard... Please don't kill me...