Politics
Friday July 14, 2006
Austrian Doctor Threatened with Child-Support Payments after Birth of Disabled Child
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By Gudrun Schultz
VIENNA, Austria, July 14, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A doctor may be
forced to pay lifetime child support for a girl born with Down’s
syndrome, after the child’s mother said she would have aborted the girl
if she had known about the disability in time, Fox News reported
Wednesday.
The Austrian Supreme Court has ordered the Salzburg Provincial Court to
consider the case, saying if the woman was not provided with sufficient
details about a high-risk pregnancy, the doctor involved would be held
financially responsible for the child’s care.
The doctor, who has not been named, advised his 31-year-old patient to
have further tests done on her unborn child, but did not give her
complete information on the risks, said Supreme Court official Ronald
Rohrer. The mother did not discover her child’s condition until 10
weeks later, when she had passed the allowable time period for an
abortion.
Her daughter, now nine years old, was born with a congenital condition
known as Down’s syndrome that causes developmental delays, reduced
learning capacity and physical problems.
Screening for chromosomal abnormalities is routinely suggested for
pregnant women aged 35 or older, when pregnancy is considered to be
higher-risk by the medical community, according to the U.S. National
Institute of Health.
An expert from Vienna University, Gerhard Marschuetz, said the case
could pressure doctors to treat all pregnancies in women over 30 as
high-risk, the Kurier reported.
In a similar Canadian case in 2003, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered
Dr. Ken Kan of Richmond to pay $325,000 to the parents of a Down’s
syndrome child for “failing” to diagnose the girl’s disability before
birth. The child’s mother, Lydia Zhang, said the birth of her daughter
Sherry “totally disrupted our plans.” If she had known of the
disability beforehand, she said, she would have aborted Sherry.
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
B.C. DOCTOR ORDERED TO PAY $325,000 FOR 'WRONGFUL BIRTH'
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/jan/03013005.html
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