A jury in Florida didn’t think Bryan Santana was worth $9 million, as his parents figured, but half that much:
On September 9, a West Palm Beach jury awarded parents Rodolfo Santana and Ana Mejia $4.5 million because they did not get accurate information from Dr. Marie Morel and OB/GYN Specialists of the Palm Beaches. Their son Bryan Santana, now age 3, was born disabled. He has no arms and only one leg. The argument made by his parents was that if the clinic had told them their son was so disabled, they would have aborted him. And since they didn’t get a chance to terminate Bryan in the womb, and obviously they can’t legally do it now, they wanted millions of dollars. — Paul Cooper
Apparently, being imperfect justifies abortion in many people’s eyes:
In the UK there are limits on when you can abort a baby unless that baby has severe disabilities. The UK law does not define those disabilities but allows abortion up until the moment of birth if the child is disabled. Why? Obviously the message is that a child with disabilities has less value or reason to live.
. . . . In America, 90% of non-life threatening disabled babies are aborted. If you have a disability in the womb, you have a 1 in 10 chance of being born. You have a 9 in 10 chance of your parents deciding your life isn’t worth living.
. . . . [T]hese numbers are so shocking that even some on the pro-choice Left see this as a problem. The Left is conflicted in being pro-rights for all types of minorities, but being pro-choice on abortion.
As one pro-choice writer put it:
“There is clearly a double standard here. It seems that a large number of people are pro-life only for babies who are thought to be ‘perfect.’ Polling indicates that people not faced with this decision personally would still be more likely to support an abortion in this situation. Reality indicates that people actually faced with this decision almost universally choose abortion.”
And a jury in Florida agreed with the polling — as well as Bryan’s mother — that he wasn’t perfect enough to live.