Palm Beach Jury Awards Couple $4.5 Million in Damages for
Child's disabilities, if detected, would have led to an abortion
Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana would have aborted their son, Bryan, if they had known ahead of time that he would have disabilities. They claim it was up to the doctor and technicians to make sure. Their "wrongful birth" suit let to the granting of a $4.5 million judgment in favor of the couple.
PrintDALLAS, TX (Catholic Online) - Bryan Santana was born in October 2008 without any arms and with only one leg. His parents, Rodolfo Santana and Ana Mejia are suing the obstetrician, Dr. Marie Morel and the sonographer, claiming that if they had done their jobs correctly and detect the anomaly before birth, the couple would have had time to abort him.
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 saw he was missing three limbs, the West Palm Beach couple said they would have terminated the pregnancy.
If this trial's outcome becomes precedent, it would be the duty of the obstetrician to detect any abnormality in time for the mother to abort him. Admittedly it does seem a gross oversight to miss such an obvious abnormality, but I am glad the doctor did miss it, for now little Bryan, who never chose his disability, will have a chance to sing his song in the world.
I am sure Bryan would rather be alive as he approaches his third birthday. He doesn't need $4.5 million, just parents who have the attitude that life is what you make of it with what you have, not parents who bemoan what they don't have and seek someone on whom to lay the blame. We have become an entitlement society, where if my life isn't all I wanted it to be, someone other than me is at fault. Then I sue them and live off the damages.
No wonder no one wants to be an obstetrician anymore, the malpractice insurance is astronomical, and those who remain in the field often pressure women into prenatal testing and abortion in case they regret their decision to give life to their child and turn on their doctor.
That attitude won't make Bryan succeed. He needs parents who accept him for who he is, not who he isn't, and who challenge him to achieve what he can despite his disabilities - like Tony Melendez.
Tony Melendez was born in Nicaragua in the days when Thalidomide was no longer given to American and European mothers, but was still prescribed to Latin American mothers to curb morning sickness. He was born without arms or legs. Rather than complain about the unfairness of his condition, which was preventable, his father sought to help his son. Tony's father brought the family to California to fit him with artificial arms, which he later discarded because he was so much better at using his feet. In high school, Tony learned how to use those feet to play guitar.
Soon, he returned to the Church of his childhood, and began to play at as many as five Sunday Masses. He was selected to play the guitar for the visit of Pope John Paul II to LA on September 15, 1987. It was as today, the Feast of the Sorrowful Mother.
Tony was nervous when he performed his song, "Never Be the Same," about his reversion to Catholicism, but no one was prepared for the Holy Father's reaction. He rose, jumped off the platform where he was sitting, walked over to the platform where Tony was, and reached up to embrace him. The audience roared its approval.
Since then Tony has crossed the world with his singing apostolate, married and adopted several children. It was my honor to meet and embrace him twice, his joy is contagious, he made me feel like his sister.
I just emailed him with a link to this story to ask him to contact Ana Mejia and Rudolfo Santana to give them hope that little Bryan can have a happy, fulfilling life. Tony radiates the peace of Christ, and if anyone can illustrate how to turn one's life around from self-pity and blame to self-help and service, he can.
From my experience raising my nine year old Christina, a child with serious cognitive delays and physical disability, yet who greets every day with a smile, I can confirm hat $4.5 million dollars can buy many things to make life with a handicap easier, but a positive attitude, can't be bought, it must be caught.
Often this hopeful spirit can be caught from a living example of a deep personal relationship with Jesus and mentors who don't take 'no' for an answer. I hope Tony Melendez contacts Bryan's family and becomes that mentor.
I hope that this couple makes a commitment to each other in Holy Matrimony, returns to the Church and brings their son in to be Baptized. With the grace of the sacraments, they can find the peace they were seeking with the lawsuit, and give their son the hope he will need to sing his own song of praise for Our Lord in his daily life.
Read the entire article here.
-----
Leticia Velasquez, a regular contributor to Catholic Online, is the co-founder of KIDS (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome) and the author of "A Special Mother is Born."
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 saw he was missing three limbs, the West Palm Beach couple said they would have terminated the pregnancy.
If this trial's outcome becomes precedent, it would be the duty of the obstetrician to detect any abnormality in time for the mother to abort him. Admittedly it does seem a gross oversight to miss such an obvious abnormality, but I am glad the doctor did miss it, for now little Bryan, who never chose his disability, will have a chance to sing his song in the world.
I am sure Bryan would rather be alive as he approaches his third birthday. He doesn't need $4.5 million, just parents who have the attitude that life is what you make of it with what you have, not parents who bemoan what they don't have and seek someone on whom to lay the blame. We have become an entitlement society, where if my life isn't all I wanted it to be, someone other than me is at fault. Then I sue them and live off the damages.
No wonder no one wants to be an obstetrician anymore, the malpractice insurance is astronomical, and those who remain in the field often pressure women into prenatal testing and abortion in case they regret their decision to give life to their child and turn on their doctor.
That attitude won't make Bryan succeed. He needs parents who accept him for who he is, not who he isn't, and who challenge him to achieve what he can despite his disabilities - like Tony Melendez.
Tony Melendez was born in Nicaragua in the days when Thalidomide was no longer given to American and European mothers, but was still prescribed to Latin American mothers to curb morning sickness. He was born without arms or legs. Rather than complain about the unfairness of his condition, which was preventable, his father sought to help his son. Tony's father brought the family to California to fit him with artificial arms, which he later discarded because he was so much better at using his feet. In high school, Tony learned how to use those feet to play guitar.
Soon, he returned to the Church of his childhood, and began to play at as many as five Sunday Masses. He was selected to play the guitar for the visit of Pope John Paul II to LA on September 15, 1987. It was as today, the Feast of the Sorrowful Mother.
Tony was nervous when he performed his song, "Never Be the Same," about his reversion to Catholicism, but no one was prepared for the Holy Father's reaction. He rose, jumped off the platform where he was sitting, walked over to the platform where Tony was, and reached up to embrace him. The audience roared its approval.
Since then Tony has crossed the world with his singing apostolate, married and adopted several children. It was my honor to meet and embrace him twice, his joy is contagious, he made me feel like his sister.
I just emailed him with a link to this story to ask him to contact Ana Mejia and Rudolfo Santana to give them hope that little Bryan can have a happy, fulfilling life. Tony radiates the peace of Christ, and if anyone can illustrate how to turn one's life around from self-pity and blame to self-help and service, he can.
From my experience raising my nine year old Christina, a child with serious cognitive delays and physical disability, yet who greets every day with a smile, I can confirm hat $4.5 million dollars can buy many things to make life with a handicap easier, but a positive attitude, can't be bought, it must be caught.
Often this hopeful spirit can be caught from a living example of a deep personal relationship with Jesus and mentors who don't take 'no' for an answer. I hope Tony Melendez contacts Bryan's family and becomes that mentor.
I hope that this couple makes a commitment to each other in Holy Matrimony, returns to the Church and brings their son in to be Baptized. With the grace of the sacraments, they can find the peace they were seeking with the lawsuit, and give their son the hope he will need to sing his own song of praise for Our Lord in his daily life.
Read the entire article here.
-----
Leticia Velasquez, a regular contributor to Catholic Online, is the co-founder of KIDS (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome) and the author of "A Special Mother is Born."
- - -
Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.
Keywords: Mejia, Santana, Bryan, Disabilities, Wrongful, Birth, lawsuit
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Lucy
God Bless you and all here and all others who seek life no matter what we receive.
Why do I smell the stench of the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU otherwise known as the Ant-Christ Litigation Uniion)?? These slimy diabolics are conspicuously involved in these kind of lawsuits. If they have a jury like the Casey Anthony case, the ACLU will surely win.
I am quite sure Bryan will be very happy that he was not aborted when he is grown up. I wish and pray that he makes a difference in a lot of peoples lives. He is a child of God and will always remain a child of God!
Wow..I wonder how this child will feel about all tis when he is older....
Wow..... imagine when this child realizes that his parents sued a doctor because they couldn't abort him in time. Ask yourselves what's worse: a life with disabilities (that modern medicine may be able to fix later on), or a life of heartbreak in knowing that your parents regretted having you...
The Santana couple received a Gift from God. Now, that they received the money their "Gift" is worth, should not they return the gift? Shame on them, have they no conscience? When their child finds out that they would have killed him had they known of his infirmities, will he be able to live with them, love them?
I hope he never does find out and if he does, I pray that the parents will have found God by that time
Oh, how perverted we have become! God be merciful to us in spite of our stupidity.
If these parents win this lawsuit, it will be one more "precedent" that will give a mother the "right" to ask for an abortion on one more specific basis and doctors one more concern and subsequent decision to leave their practice. Our Catholic doctors who specialize in family practice and OBGYN are starting to dwindle because they are losing recourse under "the law" these days. We need a pro-life President with courage to change things concerning these "court-rulers" of our country.
So, if Tony Melendez can help them , what will this couple do with the 4.5 million they so unjustly sought and received? How about giving it back to the insurers who had to pay it. How about paying all the lawyers fees and court costs and increased premiums of the OB. You can't have peace without justice. I have no sympathy for that couple but I do for their son.
Déjà vu! This baby was born three months after me in Belgium (that’s two years after the thalidomide alarm): In 1962, a Belgian woman was found not guilty of murdering her thalidomide baby. There was much celebration in Liège when she and her co-accused - her mother, sister, husband and the family doctor - walked free (The euro has no birth defect http://bphouse.com/honest_money/2011/09/17/the-euro-has-no-birth-defect/
In 1962, a Belgian woman was found not guilty of murdering her thalidomide baby. There was much celebration in Liège when she and her co-accused - her mother, sister, husband and the family doctor - walked free. (Thalidomide: 40 years on - Friday, 7 June, 2002, 14:43 GMT 15:43 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2031459.stm )
The baby was born in May 1962. I was born three months earlier.
This "softenon" (trade name of thalidomide in Holland) monster who fled to South-East Asia more than a decade ago, now has to return to the beautiful country of Belgium to have the cause of his monstrosity proven, to have the proof that thalidomide is the cause.
The recognised "softenon" monsters are, in their demand for compensation filed in 2010 against the Belgian guv’mint before the Brussels court of first instance represented by a lawyer who was consulted by, or had discussions with, the parents of the monsters.
These parents have therefore asked this lawyer to prevent that I, who am not recognised and who proves that those parents knew what they were doing when they were taking thalidomide.
could intervene in that case,
the Cour d’assises at Liège having in 1962 even authorised those parents to kill their monsters.
Last century, when a lawyer was faced with such a conflict of interest, he had to desist from the case.
"O tempora, O mores!"
It’s thanks to the gold euro that after more than 11 years, this monster still has the money to travel back from South-East Asia to Western Europe.
The process of marking to market (MTM) the Eurosystem’s gold reserves since 1999 held indeed in itself the potency to make "a" money out of the euro.
It has resulted during the FIRST decade of the Freegold (ECB MTM FLOATING gold price) "experiment", in gold rising from 30% to 60% of the Eurosystem’s (international liquidity) reserves.
http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2010/07/gold-ultimate-wealth-consolidator.html
Herman Van Rompuy is (the Belgian) president of the European council. His chief of staff (chef de cabinet) is Baron Frans van Daele, formerly Belgian ambassador to, variously, the USA, the UN, the EU and NATO and chief of staff of Belgian Foreign Ministers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Van_Rompuy
Due to a stroke of fortune – no, I didn’t do it on purpose - , I will be in Western Europe in the same week as chief of staff, baron van Daele address the alumni of my alma mater, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in a debate on
the economic situation
under the question
"Does the euro still have a future?
http://alum.kuleuven.be/verenigingen/Antwerpen.html
op woensdag 28 september 2011 om 19u30
In het Groot Auditorium van BNP Paribas Fortis op de Meir/Wapper, Antwerpen.
Programma
SNIP
21u25 Slotwoord door Frans baron van Daele, Voorzitter van Alumni Lovanienses vzw
UNSNIP
As I said, it’s thanks to the gold euro that after more than 11 years, this thalidomide monster still has the money to travel back from South East Asia to Western Europe,
but the banksters want to destroy the euro to save the welfare-state and to save their fractional-reserve banksterism – which (the latter) is necessary to finance de budgets deficits, which deficits are necessary to finance their welfare-states,
but even the state "tout court" can no longer be financed
Baron van Daele and Bankster Peter De Keyzer, Chief Economist BNP Paribas Fortis, here I come …
I registered. We’ll see whether they will let me enter.
As Saint Thomas Aquinas gave as a reason to stop writing before the age of 50:
"I can do no more. Such things have been revealed to me that everything I have written seems to me so much straw. "
When one approaches Truth, the long road which led us to it seems derisory. Inspiration stops completely. Writing does no longer matter
Auteur: SAGRAMOR
Date: 04-09-2011 14:37
http://www.thomas-aquin.net/PHPhorum/read.php?f=6&i=53488&t=53280
SNIP
Quand on approche de la vérité, tout le long chemin qui nous y a porté nous semble dérisoire.
D'où, le célèbre: "Tout ce que j'ai écrit n'est que paille."
Et l'inspiration cesse complètement, avec le sentiment que notre plume est dérisoire.