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Reproductive Freedom and the Prevention of Birth Defects: A New and Developing Standard of Medical Care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Barbara R. Grumet
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Extract

The past fifteen years have witnessed parallel advances in law and medicine which enable physicians and future parents to prevent the birth of many handicapped children. The right of reproductive freedom has been included as one facet of the constitutionally based right to privacy. Medical science has developed and refined techniques for detecting parental carriers of many handicapping conditions, as well as means to determine whether a particular fetus is afflicted. As these advances have progressed, a sort of mutual dependency has evolved: The parents' right to decide whether and when to have children cannot be fully exercised unless parents have the benefit of available medical knowledge. Nor can advances in detecting birth defects be fully implemented without legally sanctioned means of preventing or terminating pregnancy.

Along with these advances has come increased litigation over the issue of the standard of care a physician owes his or her pregnant patients. Several parents who have given birth to severely handicapped children have attempted to impose an additional duty on physicians: that is, to warn parents of the risks of having a handicapped child, and/or to diagnose the handicap in time for the parents to terminate the pregnancy.

Type
Article
Information
Medicolegal News , Volume 8 , Issue 5 , October 1980 , pp. 4 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1980

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