Washington D.C., Mar 19, 2006 / 22:00 pm
The Ohio legislature has voted to ban lawsuits that would allow parents to claim that the birth of their disabled child was a “wrongful birth” and that they should not have to incur the costs of caring for their offspring.
Such wrongful birth lawsuits claim that had a physician diagnosed a disability in a child before birth, the parents of that child would have aborted the baby.
In deciding to ban such lawsuits, the Ohio legislature has made “a profound statement” that “it is never wrongful for a baby to be born,” said national director of Priests for Life Fr. Frank Pavone.
"No matter the disability involved, no matter the hardship in caring for a helpless child, grace, beauty, and love increase when God creates another baby,” said the priest. “Birth should be a cause of joy, never a cause of [legal] action."
"The disabled are like everyone else," said Fr. Pavone. "They're better off loved, not better off dead."