Two New Jersey Cases Featured in Ed Bradley's Report

60 MINUTES will probe the contentious issue of "wrongful-birth" lawsuits, in which parents of disabled children sue their doctors for missing their child's birth defects on pre-natal tests. Ed Bradley's report, which also looks at the suits' effect on doctors' malpractice insurance rates and the ethical questions they raise in society, will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES, Sunday June 22 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. ?

The report features two New Jersey couples who claimed in suits that their obstetricians should have diagnosed the birth defects their children were born with, a scenario, they said, that would have moved them to abort the fetuses. Stressing what a difficult decision it would have been, the couples, Willie and Cynthia Fields and Dan and Karen Powers, both say the financial burden such children pose was beyond their means. Ryan Powers was born with spina bifida, a physically crippling condition that, in his case, did not affect his brain; in fact, he's an "A" student. Jade Fields is severely handicapped mentally and physically and uses a feeding tube. The Fields and the Powers settled out of court with their doctors' insurance companies and received substantial sums they now use to care for their children. ?
The Fields spoke on camera for the report; the Powers spoke to 60 MINUTES, but declined to be interviewed on camera. Rachelle Harz, a lawyer representing both couples, spoke on camera to Bradley. "When you can recover for a family...do you know what I have done for those parents? They know when they go to sleep, someone will take care of that child." ?
"Wrongful-birth" suits are controversial; only 28 states recognize them and nine states actually prohibit them. Experts estimate that thousands have been filed since abortion became legal in 1973 and there are no limits on the defects for which suits are brought. They have become a debate for ethicists. "It seems as though we are questioning not only the value of life, but the value of people who are not perfect," says Anita Allen-Castellito, a bio-ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. "Realistically, how many children are going to hear that complicated story as opposed to the simpler message that 'I didn't want you, you're disabled,'" she tells Bradley. ?

Advocates for the disabled say the suits send the wrong message. "The message is that these children's lives are so miserable and such a burden to the family that the only compensation is millions of dollars," says Marsha Saxton, herself a spina bifida sufferer. ?
Doctors point to such suits as a reason for the higher malpractice insurance rates many say are forcing them to stop practicing medicine in general, and delivering babies in particular. But doctors need to be monitored says Harz. "If there wasn't to be a malpractice case, where's this victim supposed to turn? Who's going to police the doctors then?" Hartz asks Bradley.