From Jacob Jurmain
The practice of Israeli children with birth defects suing for “wrongful life” is disturbing on two counts (29 October, p 6). First, allowing such lawsuits in a country where euthanasia is unconditionally illegal shows a profound inconsistency. Either a person’s existence is universally beneficial and desirable, as an anti-euthanasia law indicates, or there are circumstances in which it is harmful and undesirable, as the mere use of the phrase “wrongful life” indicates.
Secondly, given that much of this centres on antenatal genetic testing, the notion of holding a doctor responsible for single instances of false negatives violates basic statistical principles. False positives and negatives will inevitably occur with any test.
Therefore, taken individually, they cannot be evidence of negligence. Rather, such evidence would be found in the physician’s overall error rate if it were significantly worse than allowed by reasonable standards of practice.
Hanover, New Hampshire, US
