Mother of Nine Sues Massachusetts Hospital After Unauthorized Sterilization

Rasmus said:
Hm?

I wasn't suggesting that you could actually buy children from someone, or should be allowed to do that.

But suppose you'd ask 1000 parents (who wanted to be parents) how much money you'd have to offer them to be allowed to simply take away one of their children from them.

That is fairly close to what has been done to this woman /again, assuming that her story is true, of course.) You might want to flesh out the scenario and make it more detailed to overcome of its shortcomings - but how else would you arrive at a fair sum to offer her?

If I steal your VCR or computer and can't give it back to you, wouldn't it be fair if I gave you enough money to replace it? And if oyu couldn't buy that particualr kind of computer anymore, wouldn't it be fair if I gave you an amount of money for which you would possibly have sold me the machine had I not stolen it?

I didn't mean to suggest somone should jsut go and buy her a new child. I was trying to say pretty much the same as DrKitten did with the somewhat clearer "approximately a trillion dollars".
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I just thought there was a bit of irony in you declaring that children were not a commodity, then proceeding to placing a price on same ..
 
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Dorian Gray said:
Okay, my wife belongs to some stupid moronathon called CafeMom. It's about 25% helpful groups with tips and support, and 75% women who wish they were still in high school.

ANYWAY, she believes that they should have sterilized this woman, because anyone who has that many children is a drain on the system. I responded "arguably, isn't even one child a drain on the system? How many children is your cutoff, woman? And do you want doctors going in and performing unasked for surgeries on you?"
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I'm actually pro-sterilization. I think that society should have a right to control who can have kids.
But it's certainly not the delivering surgeon's decision.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
I just thought there was a bit of irony in you declaring that children were not a commodity, then proceeding to placing a price on same ..
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Children aren't the commodity. Violation of the rules on informed consent is the issue.

For better or for worse, this is something of a third rail of American health care ethics, in part because of the terrible history that US doctors have in terms of getting patient consent. Especially when it involves minorities, and doubly-especially when it involves enforced sterilizations. Angela Davis has written extensively about the specific practice (in the United States) of sterilizing minority women without their consent while they were in the hospital giving birth.

Add that to the usual laundry list of sins that is usually headed by the Tuskegee syphillis experiment, and you can see why this kind of thing is a hot-button issue for almost every medical ethicist and lawyer out there. It's not just that the woman herself was injured, but that she was injured in a way that implicitly continues the pattern of violating minority health care rights, and appears to continue a culture that the government and health care profession have been trying to eliminate for decades. For this reason, the "price" would reflect not just the injury to the woman, but an additional sum to reflect the idea that this kind of "mistake" is absolutely unacceptable, absolutely inexcusable, and completely beyond the pale.

Situations like this are why punitive damages exist in the first place. If I were dictator of the world, I would shut down the hospital and suspend the licences of every doctor who worked there, whether they were involved or not, with a note attached saying "this suspension is to remind you to pay more attention to the professional ethics of your colleagues."
 
drkitten said:
If I were dictator of the world, I would shut down the hospital and suspend the licences of every doctor who worked there, whether they were involved or not, with a note attached saying "this suspension is to remind you to pay more attention to the professional ethics of your colleagues not to work for low-income patients."
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Fixed that for you.
Yeah, let's severely punish the overworked medical staff for making a mistake while taking care of a welfare mom -- making her permanently infertile when she only wanted to be temporarily infertile. Let's make sure that no doctors and medical staff ever make the mistake of performing government-sponsored surgeries.
Or, on the other hand, we can confirm that a mistake actually happened, compensate the mom as best we can, then acknowledge that the mistake was tragic and work to provide additional resources to these hospitals so that these sorts of mistakes aren't repeated in the future.
Personally, I'd prefer a response that doesn't deter doctors from working with the poor, but I'm not dictator of the world, so...
 
Keep in mind we are talking about two different possibilities here. A mistake on one hand and intentional violation on the other. Intentional, this is completely unethical and a major violation. Mistakes during an operation can happen and that is excusable within reasonable limits. I have no idea on any numbers but would not be surprised if there is a high risk of sterilisation with C-sections after multiple pregnancies. We wait to see if there is even any evidence of her infertility yet. I assume there is a logical reason why she claims so, but we wait to see evidence.
 
AvalonXQ said:
Fixed that for you.
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No.

Yeah, let's severely punish the overworked medical staff for making a mistake while taking care of a welfare mom -- making her permanently infertile when she only wanted to be temporarily infertile.
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Yes. There are certain mistakes that are unacceptable.

This is one of them.
 
AvalonXQ said:
Yeah, let's severely punish the overworked medical staff for making a mistake while taking care of a welfare mom -- making her permanently infertile when she only wanted to be temporarily infertile. Let's make sure that no doctors and medical staff ever make the mistake of performing government-sponsored surgeries.
Or, on the other hand, we can confirm that a mistake actually happened, compensate the mom as best we can, then acknowledge that the mistake was tragic and work to provide additional resources to these hospitals so that these sorts of mistakes aren't repeated in the future.
Personally, I'd prefer a response that doesn't deter doctors from working with the poor, but I'm not dictator of the world, so...
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I'm not sure I understand your position. At times you seem to be implying that welfare moms should expect a different level of care than paying customers. But not the whole time. Can you clarify what you mean? I don't want to put words in your mouth.
 
drkitten said:
Did I say that?
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You said that this particular error should result in suspending the entire hospital staff because it's consistent with past forced sterilization procedures. The implication is that we don't have to grossly overreact if, say, an affluent woman is accidently sterilized.
If, instead, you believe an entire hospital should be shut down every time any woman is mistakenly sterilized, I apologize for mischaracterizing your position.



Well, then I suggest you get to work projecting better incentive structures. Since what you wrote has little to do with either the situation or my proposed solution.
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What are the differences between what I wrote and either the situation or your proposed solution? Please provide specific references with citations.
 
Cynic said:
I'm not sure I understand your position. At times you seem to be implying that welfare moms should expect a different level of care than paying customers.
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Quite the contrary. I think every patient should expect competent care.*
But I also think allowances should be made when mistakes are the result of an overtaxed system, and that our response should be to act to relieve the burden rather than doing things that will likely make it worse.



ETA: *Actually, I'm not sure exactly where I'd go with that. I think it makes sense to be able to pay for better care. So, maybe there's a minimum acceptable level but gradations above that.
 
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Skeptical Greg said:
I just thought there was a bit of irony in you declaring that children were not a commodity, then proceeding to placing a price on same ..
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There certainly is. But what can you do? You have to compensate the woman and place some price on her ability to have children.

How dumb of me not to get the more direct example: How much would a woman need to be paid to get a sterilisation that she absolutely does not want? I guiess it would be a bit less than having to give away an actual child.
 
How would shutting down the entire hospital (thus removing ease of access to health care for hundreds of people) and holding responsible the colleagues of physician who made the error be in any way productive? That's ridiculous.

bookitty said:
My own feelings about having children when one is on welfare are not important. I can not make that choice for anyone.
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Eh? When you have children on welfare, you are expecting others to pay for them.

Roma said:
I've had a couple of babies and my OBGYNs were terrible communicators, yes I was poor and on welfare too maybe I wasn't important enough to pay any attention to.
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Why would you have a baby when on welfare?

I can imagine a scenario where you are able to afford a child and continue the pregnancy, then somehow lose your income when it's too late for an abortion. But that scenario, while possible, seems mostly unlikely.
 
Rasmus said:
There certainly is. But what can you do? You have to compensate the woman and place some price on her ability to have children.

How dumb of me not to get the more direct example: How much would a woman need to be paid to get a sterilisation that she absolutely does not want? I guiess it would be a bit less than having to give away an actual child.
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In this case, I suspect it would be less than the eventual settlement, she and her lawyer will split ..
 
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