the culture of death: a footnote

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Sep 11, 2006

A single mum in Scotland is taking legal action to get 250,000 pounds from the National Health Service. Pregnant with twins at 16, she went for an abortion, and the Health Care Providers only succeeded in bagging one of the targets. The survivor is now five years old and starting school. A heart-warming story of safe, legal, imperfectly rare feticide, and its friends:

Five years ago, at the age of 16, Miss Dow discovered she was pregnant. After much soul-searching and fearing she could not cope with premature motherhood, she went to Perth Royal Infirmary for an abortion.

But seven weeks from term, she was told that one of the foetuses had survived the abortion and in August 2001 she gave birth to a baby daughter, Jayde.

Did they offer her a free pedicure, I wonder, by way of compensation? Perhaps it would have spared later ill-feelings. Sheriff Michael Fletcher of the Perth Sheriff Court turned down the mother's financial claim on the grounds that she had engaged to get a particular medical procedure done, not a double-homicide per se.

Shortly after reaching a decision on Friday, Sheriff Fletcher said that simply because a doctor had used the word "termination" during a conversation with Miss Dow, it did not guarantee success.

Fletcher certainly has a telling point there. Abortionists, unlike fetuses, are only human. And how can you not love the Cosa Nostra-ish rationale that follows?:

Sheriff Fletcher said that except in unusual circumstances, the relationship between a patient and his NHS doctor was not a contractual one. He added that the situation would have been different if Miss Dow had been a private patient, as the doctor/patient relationship then became a contractual one.

See? If she had really wanted to put out a "contract" on her children, she should have given the job to a pro, who could have guaranteed a successful score. Two scores. However, the NHS muffed the hit, and now Dow's maternal instincts have kicked-in, to the quarter-million mark:

"Jayde started school two weeks ago and is enjoying it. I still want to do the best for her, but it's exhausting dealing with the legal side."

Emphasis added.

Scotsman photo